More Bible Stats: Top 100 Searching Cities Look Very Different from Top 100 Believing Cities

Building upon recent research on how 100 American cities "rank and tank" at embracing the Bible, Bible Gateway has crunched last year's search data and produced its own list of the 100 most "Bible-minded" cities in the United States.

However, this list is quite different, since it measures "different things" from the list produced by the American Bible Society (ABS) and Barna Group. Notes Bible Gateway on its blog: "The ABS/Barna survey is measuring Bible reading and agreement that the Bible is accurate, while our data shows overall usage regardless of how the reader feels about the Bible's accuracy."

Among the interesting results: While Washington, D.C., ranked No. 80 on the ABS list, it ranks No. 3 on Bible Gateway's list—the largest jump of any city. Honolulu is a close second, ranking No. 78 for ABS vs. No. 13 for Bible Gateway. (The biggest drop: Charleston/Huntington, W.V., ranking No. 11 for ABS but only No. 72 for Bible Gateway.)

The top 10 cities that used BibleGateway.com the most in 2013, based on pageviews per household:

10. Houston, Texas 9. San Antonio, Texas 8. Chattanooga, Tenn. 7. Waco/Temple/Bryan, Texas 6. Raleigh/Durham/Fayetteville, N.C. 5. Nashville, Tenn. 4. Charlotte, N.C. 3. Washington, D.C. 2. Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas 1. Atlanta, Ga.

By comparison, here's how ABS's top 10 "Bible-minded" cities ranked on Bible Gateway pageviews per household (all drop except Charlotte, N.C.):

10. Knoxville, Tenn.—drops 30 spots to No. 40 9. Jackson, Miss.—drops 20 spots to No. 29 8. Little Rock, Ark.—drops 35 spots to No. 43 7. Greenville/Spartanburg, S.C./Asheville N.C.—drops 18 spots to No. 25 6. Charlotte, N.C.—rises 2 spots to No. 4 5. Shreveport, La.—drops 53 spots to No. 58 4. Springfield, Mo.—drops 17 spots to No. 21 3. Roanoke/Lynchburg, Va.—drops 15 spots to No. 18 2. Birmingham, Ala.—drops 13 spots to No. 15 1. Chattanooga, Tenn.—drops 7 spots to No. 8

In addition, here's how ABS's least Bible-minded cities ranked on Bible Gateway's results:

10. Portland, Maine—drops 4 spots to No. 95 9. Burlington, Vt.—drops 7 spots to No. 99 8. Phoenix, Ariz.—rises 34 spots to No. 59 7. Hartford/New Haven, Conn.—rises 4 spots to No. 90 6. Buffalo, N.Y—drops one spot to No. 96 5. Cedar Rapids, Iowa—rises 18 spots to No. 78 4. San Francisco—rises 53 spots to No. 44 3. Boston, Mass.—rises 16 spots to No. 82 2. Albany, N.Y.—rises 2 spots to No. 97 1. Providence, R.I./ New Bedford, Mass.—rises 2 spots to No. 98

CT previously noted Bible Gateway's top searches for Bible verses in 2013, and how they compared with YouVersion's top verses. Last year, CT noted ABS's top and bottom cities (sorry, Colorado Springs), and compared them with Gallup's list of America's most religious cities, along with a separate ranking of America's most saintly cities.

Here is the full list of Bible Gateway's comparison of the top 50 cities: