Galveston County listing resource for faith groups

South Houston Sangha News was initiated in large part because no other comprehensive or up-to-date Buddhism and meditation resource lists were known to be maintained in the greater Houston area at the time of its inception (see this summary for further detail). 

However, local general religious practice and resource lists are published in our area by a number of commercial and on-line sources.  One extensively-developed example is the devotional resource list published by Galveston Daily News every Saturday. 


Instructions for having a religious institution included in this local directory. 

The list for April 20, 2013 included approximately 270 religious centers (there was some repetition across descriptive categories, so this is a rough total quickly counted). 

Screengrabbed from Galveston Daily News, downsampled to illegibility as a Fair Use conformance. 

Not unexpectedly given local demographics, these listings are predominantly Christian.

Again, these percentages are very rough given repetition of listings across categories and other sorting issues. 

The "Other" category encompassed Jewish, Baha'i, Muslim, and Unitarian Universalist groups. 

However, as I verified with Ms. Rhoades by email recently, there are no denominational exclusions intended by Galveston Daily News.  If a faith group such as a Buddhist organization is not represented on this list, that has occurred because the group simply hasn't requested that their information be added.

So with that in mind, I'd encourage Buddhist temples and groups within Galveston County to consider submitting their information to that newspaper.  There's no charge for this public service and the information could prove to be valuable to local seekers. 

In contrast to the local pie chart above, here is Wikipedia's world religions estimate. 

New data on Buddhism's local prevalence

HuffPost has published this synthesis with a slideshow that details the prevalence of Buddhist adherents across a variety of major American cities, including Houston, Austin, and San Antonio.

According to the way "Buddhist adherents" were measured, greater Houston ranks about mid-way down the list, with 343 Buddhist adherents per 100,000 population. 
Screengrabbed from this source. 

HuffPost's digest, in turn, is based on this statistical compilation, which was reportedly done nation-wide based on data gathered during the 2010 American national census.

Low resolution screengrab from that source, which advertises their extensive full statistical work as being available for a fee. 

Measurements are presented on a county-by-county basis, with greater Houston being presented thusly:


Same source, again, low resolution presentation with sensitivity toward Fair Use copyright issues. 

Screengrab of much the same County array as depicted in the low-resolution excerpt above, in which the following Buddhist percentages can be extracted. 
Greater Houston:
Harris County: 0.1-0.49%
Galveston County: 0.1-0.49%
Fort Bend County: 0.5-0.99%
Montgomery County: less than 0.1%
Waller County: 1.0-4.99%
San Jacinto County:  1.0-4.99%

Eastex:
Jefferson County: 0.1-0.49%
Newton County:  1.0-4.99%

County base map supplied by the Governor's office.

These new data can be used to augment this blog's July post titled "How many Buddhists in greater Houston?" in which it was roughly estimated that the number was perhaps around 70,000.  But if we take at face value this new study's measurement of 0.343%  for the area and factor that into the general population estimate of 6 million, we instead end up with 20,580, which is significantly lower. 

The differences may be arising in part because of the way that "adherent" is defined and measured in this study with its emphasis on "congregational participation", which is perhaps a more relevant metric for mainstream American faith groups (e.g., Christian lineages) than it is for Buddhism.  There are a great many individuals who may deem themselves to be either Buddhist or Unlabeled without declaring a specific institutional affiliation.  Other measurement sources have clearly indicated that Houston's Vietnamese contribution alone should well surpass this relatively low estimate of overall Buddhism prevalence. 

At any rate, it's good to have more reference data points, and this study also raises some new questions.  In particular, why are higher participation rates measured outside of the greater Houston urbanized core?  Specifically, in Waller, San Jacinto, and (of all places) Newton County, which is located in culturally-distinct deep East Texas.  These are intriguing questions, perhaps for future blog posts.

How many Buddhists in greater Houston?

The Buddhist blogosphere (e.g., here, and here) is all a-buzz with the results of this recent Pew Forum study, which revises upward (in fact, almost doubles) previous estimates of Buddhism prevalence in the United States.  According to that study, between three and four million people nationwide declare themselves to be Buddhist.

It raises the obvious question:  Given this new information, how many Buddhists are there in greater Houston?

Small statue on the grounds of Chua Phap Nguyen / Dharma Spring Temple, Pearland, TX.

An estimate can be derived in a couple of different ways.  First, a straight percentage calculation can be done using the population for "greater Houston" (which is defined by the U.S. Census as an "urbanized area").

Yikes, that's hard to read. 
Go to this link if you'd like legible information.

The July 2011 total population estimate for greater Houston is 6.08 million persons.  Taking the Pew population prevalence at face value (between 1% and 1.3%) yields somewhere between about 60,000 and 80,000 local Buddhists.

Growing, growing, and growing, Buddhist or otherwise. 
Total area population graph from this economic development source. 

It would be interesting to further refine (or at least corroborate) that number with an estimate based on the local population composition itself, rather than by simply applying national statistics.  Here, it's easy to get confounded by statistics that pertain to "Houston" (the City of) and "greater Houston" (the metropolitan area).  According to the 2010 Census racial statistics for the City of Houston, 6.4% of the population is Asian.  Extrapolating this regionally and coupling it with the Pew estimate that 14% of Asian Americans are Buddhists yields a local population of about 54,000 just from the membership contributions of Asians alone.  Pew Forum also noted that roughtly one third of American Buddhists are not Asian.  Assuming this same ratio holds true locally, the total number would then be estimated at roughly 82,000 local Buddhists, which is in line with the general estimates given above.  However, this estimate may be a little inflated, because greater Houston's Asian population is a bit larger than the 5% national average. 

The Pew study also reveals that Vietnamese identification with Buddhism is particularly strong, and is, in fact, the only measured Asian nationality for which Buddhism dominates.

Screengrabbed from here.

Well-known Houston blogger Tory Gattis has described the recent substantial migration of Vietnamese Americans to the greater Houston area, building on descriptions published by the Los Angeles Times and other sources.  Tory estimated that there were 85,000 Vietnamese Americans in Houston as of 2006, but also referenced a HAIF thread which estimated 160,000 - 180,000 within the greater Houston area.  Census numbers can be difficult to tease apart, but this blog article estimated 104,000 Vietamese Americans in the Houston area as of 2010.  Taking that number, which is the middling estimate, and coupling it with the Pew percentage, would yield approximately 45,000 local Vietnamese American Buddhists alone.

To the approximately 70,000 local Buddhists out there, I say hello and welcome.
:-)