You’ll never guess which United States regions are the most religious.

OK, you figured it out: The Southwest part of the U.S. is the most religious with the Southeast not far behind, praise the Lord. I would have guessed the Southeast on top.

As you might also have guessed, New England where the Puritans first settled is the least religious U.S. region followed closely by the Pacific coast. Everybody else is sort of in between and sort of religious here and there.

These results come from a massive yearlong Gallup survey involving nearly 131,000 adults during 2017 with at least 6,000 interviews in each region. (Map of regions here.)

They found that 45 percent of respondents in the Southwest and 43 percent in the Southeast described themselves as Very Religious, meaning weekly attendance at church. While about a quarter of respondents in those regions considered themselves Not At All Religious, meaning never attending services.

As for the you-know-who crowd in New England, the numbers were almost exactly reversed — 26 percent Very Religious and 48 percent not religious. For those anxiously awaiting their earthquake Armageddon on the Pacific coast, 29 percent Very and 43 percent Not at All.

Gallup’s East Central region (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan) was right about in the middle–37 percent Very, 37 Not. West Central (Dakotas down through Kansas and Missouri up through Wisconsin and Minnesota) it was 39/32.

The Rockies were 35/38.

Gallup reported:

Mormons are most likely to be very religious (73%), followed by Protestants (50%), Muslims (45%), Catholics (40%) and Jews (18%).

Religiosity increases with age: Only 28% of those younger than 30 are very religious, compared with 47% of those aged 65 and older. Blacks (48%) are more likely than whites or Hispanics (36% each) to be very religious.

Even the least religious state in the Southeast — Florida with 35/33 — was more religious than those pagans in California 29/42.

In New England, by far the least religious state is Vermont where only 16 percent claim to be Very Religious and a whopping 59 percent are Not At All Religious.

Gallup summarizes:

While the percentage of all Americans who are very religious has shrunk over the past decade, the differences in religiousness between the regions have held firm, with no indication that these regional differences will change in the near future.