# Baha'i membership statistics

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-18 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Robert Stockman, Baha'i membership statistics, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> Bahá'í membership statistics
> 
> Robert Stockman
> 
> 1998-11
> 
> Letter One, question
> 
> Subject: Re: Bahá'í Growth
> 
> Date: 11/1/98 1:34 AM
> 
> Greetings!
> 
> Does anyone know the basis for the membership figures given below? Are they
> running composites of declarations less withdrawals and deaths? Are they the
> number of American Bahá'í subscribers? Do the figures include folks who
> signed
> cards during mass teaching campaigns without recognizing the station of
> Bahá'u'lláh? If so, is there an other basis for measuring "believers"?
> 
> Figure 1, "Number of American Bahá'ís for selected years" appears in Robert
> Stockman's short essay, "U.S. Bahá'í Community Membership: 1894-1996,"
> published
> in The American Bahá'í November 23, 1996, page 27.
> 
> Note: Statistics are available for most years, but not for all. The years
> shown
> were chosen to represent trends.
> 
> Year Membership
> 
> 1894 -- 7
> 1899 -- 1,500
> 1900 -- 500
> 1906 -- 1,500
> 1916 -- 2,884
> 1920 -- 1,500
> 1926 -- 1,500
> 1936 -- 3,000
> 1941 -- 4,256
> 1946 -- 5,134
> 1951 -- 6,729
> 1956 -- 7,578
> 1962 -- 9,659
> 1966 -- 14,716
> 1968 -- 17,765
> 1970 -- 23,994
> 1971 -- 40,221
> 1972 -- 59,372
> 1974 -- 63,470
> 1979 -- 77,396
> 1984 -- 91,669
> 1989 -- 112,000
> 1993 -- 120,000
> 1996 -- 133,000
> 
> Letter Two, answer
> 
> Subject: RE: Bahá'í Growth
> 
> Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998
> 
> From: "Stockman, Robert"
> 
> To: "Bahá'í Studies"
> 
> Dear Friends:
> 
> The list of Bahá'í population numbers in the United States from the
> 18890s to the present is a composite from various sources. The
> figures before 1934 are the best estimates possible, based on the US
> Religious Census (information collected by the Bahá'ís based on
> various definitions of membership). The figures from 1940 to the
> 1960s or 1970s come from Bahá'í News, where the figures were
> occasionally published. From some time in the 1970s on, a staffer at
> the National Teaching Committee (one with graduate school experience,
> not someone with no statistical experience) compiled the data from
> national membership records, probably annual membership reports in the
> files.
> 
> The definition of membership is more or less the same since the 1930s;
> a person must sign a declaration card stating he/she believes in
> Bahá'u'lláh, the Bab, and `Abdu'l-Bahá, and understands there are laws
> and institutions to obey (the card does not specify them).
> 
> The National Center, obviously, is not in the position to decide which
> cards were signed in good faith and which were not. The National
> Spiritual Assembly instituted a two-tier process about 1974, of (1)
> declaration, and (2) enrollment, the latter involving a meeting with
> the declarant to ascertain that the person understands what s/he is
> doing. The two-stage process was inaugurated because of abuses in
> mass-teaching campaigns during 1968-72. It is difficult to say how
> extensive "abuse" was; there are stories about what people did ("sign
> here and you'll start getting a newspaper every month" for example).
> I participated in mass teaching in Florida in 1979 and saw no cutting
> of corners. I have never heard anyone say that "corner cutting" was
> extensive or widespread, so I am of the opinion that rigorous
> sociological research is needed to determine it, rather than relying
> on anecdotes.
> 
> The National Bahá'í Center does not maintain a list of "inactive"
> Bahá'ís. Its membership list is divided into several categories:
> 
> Bahá'ís in good standing, known addresses.
> Bahá'ís in good standing, "mail return."
> Bahá'ís in good standing, "address unknown." This category is
> a more definitive one than (2). I am not sure what the difference
> between the two are; the people in Information Services have reliable
> definitions or each. Perhaps it has to do with the post office's
> reply.
> Bahá'ís who have lost their rights, are in mental institutions,
> prisons, etc. These are coded as separate categories. I am uncertain
> to what extent their addresses are maintained. It would depend on
> whether they get *The American Bahá'í,* because the main maintenance
> of the mailing list has to do with the "address correction requested"
> feature on *The American Bahá'í.*
> Bahá'ís who are dead. When someone dies they remain on the
> database and their id number is permanently theirs. Obviously, they
> are not counted as part of the current membership! I say this only
> because someone has suggested in print that they are included. They
> aren't, I assure you.
> 
> I am typing at home and do not have all the latest figures. As of
> Ridvan 1998 the American Bahá'í community included 58,240 adult men;
> 58,903 adult women; 5,776 adults whose sex is unknown in Wilmette (I
> am sure it is known to the persons in question); for a total of
> 122,920 adults. The community also includes 7,212 youth (aged 15-20)
> and 8,036 children (aged 0-14). These total 138,168 persons. These
> figures do not include Bahá'ís in the Falklands or the Turks and
> Caicos Islands, which are under the jurisdiction of the United States
> NSA (of course, there are 14 Bahá'ís in the Falklands and 142 in Turks
> and Caicos, so they don't change the figures much). The figures also
> do not include Bahá'ís in Alaska (about 3,000, I think), Hawaii,
> Puerto Rico, Guam, and other US possessions not under the jurisdiction
> ot the U.S. NSA.
> 
> These figures are from the annual statistical report sent to the
> Universal House of Justice in late August and are public statistics.
> If you'd like to know how many Bahá'ís there are in any particular
> state, I can tell you.
> 
> Of the 138,000, roughly half have good addresses, and I think about a
> quarter each are mail returns and address unknowns. But people do not
> stay in the mail return or address unknown categories because
> sometimes they notify the NSA of their correct address. The
> Information Services department makes over 20,000 address changes a
> year; Bahá'ís move a lot (the United States census reports the average
> American moves once every five years). When an address is updated the
> date of the update is now kept, but I don't know whether it has always
> been kept. At some point in the future Bahá'í sociologists could
> define "membership" as someone whose address has not been listed as
> "address unknown" for the last, say, five years or the last ten years,
> but I am not sure whether the data would allow that yet.
> 
> A few other matters. Electoral districts are defined based on known
> addresses, of course. Some areas have more "address unknowns" than
> others. I once asked the computer to give me the list of everyone in
> South Bend, Indiana (where I live) who falls in all three categories.
> We had 27 with known addresses and maybe three in the other two
> categories.
> 
> Defining membership is extremely subjective and whenever anyone says
> group X has so many members you always have to ask "by what
> definition"? There are usually several definitions that are
> legitimate. If you go through a town and ask everyone what their
> religion is, you will get a definition based on "religious identity."
> You will find people who say they are Lutherans that the local
> Lutheran church has never seen, because they moved into town as
> Lutherans and still consider themselves Lutherans, but never go to
> church. There are a very small number of people in the United States
> that are Bahá'ís by that definition. When I was the Bahá'í
> representative to the Harvard-Radcliffe United Ministry I got all the
> "religious identification cards" that had been marked "Bahá'í" (these
> were included in the registration packet every September; completing
> it was optional). In addition to the cards turned in by the Bahá'ís
> there were always 1 or 2 people we had never heard of. There were
> also a few people who checked multiple boxes, like "Orthodox Jew"
> "Bahá'í" and "Buddhist."
> 
> Even with the "address known" people, the "quality" of faith varies a
> lot. I have a friend who declared after knowing about the Faith for
> 20 years. Every now and them we get in a discussion and he say "Rob,
> what do we believe about X?" He wants me to tell him what "we" (he
> and I) as Bahá'ís believe! This friend also gets feasts and firesides
> mixed up. But does he have a Bahá'í identity? Yes.
> 
> Regarding what fraction of the "mass taught" Bahá'ís have a Bahá'í
> identity, this requires research to answer. If people didn't have an
> identity when they signed a card, maybe they do after receiving *The
> American Bahá'í* for twenty years! Whenever new membership cards are
> mailed to people, a hundred or so are returned by people who say they
> aren't Bahá'ís. Recently an effort was made to find telephone numbers
> for Bahá'ís who were "address unknown" in South Carolina and they were
> called. I haven't heard the details, but the informal estimate I
> heard was that maybe 10% of them do not identify themselves as
> Bahá'ís.
> 
> I hope we can get better data, though. Recently 4,000 Bahá'ís were
> chosen at random and sent a letter asking them to participate in a
> "survey panel" for 18 months. A third replied favorably; almost no
> one refused. The panel has been divided into thirds and each third
> will be surveyed twice a year on different matters. Then a different
> 4,000 people will be selected and asked to participate and new panels
> will be constituted. The surveying task force hopes to make surveying
> a permanent part of the Bahá'í community culture. The panels are
> being checked for sample bias and other scientific efforts are being
> made to check reliability of the results. I hope in a year or so the
> results can be published in a proper, peer-reviewed journal, just like
> research on Baptists and other groups. The Bahá'í Faith is part of
> the Cooperative Congregational Survey project, a massive effort by 40
> denominations to survey their congregations simultaneously about the
> same issues in early 2000 (coincident with the decennial US census).
> So surveying of the American Bahá'í community--which actually began in
> the early 1980s, and accelerated with small surveys in 1988 and
> 1992--is now beginning to be developed on a professional basis. I
> hope the results, in a few years, will replace anecdotes and
> speculation with hard data.
> 
> METADATA
> 
> Views22937 views since posted 1998; last edit 2012;
> 
> previous at archive.org.../stockman_bahai_membership_statistics;
> URLs changed in 2010, see archive.org.../bahai-library.org
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> — *Baha'i membership statistics (Used by permission of the curator)*