County-by-county count of Sikhs in US
NEW YORK, November 2 2005
IANS
The US 2010 Religious Congregations Membership Study
(RCMS) will include a county-by-county population
count of Sikhs in the country.
This was announced by Tarunjit Singh, secretary general
of the World Sikh Council, America Region (WSC-AR).
Since the publication of the 2000 RCMS, which only
included a listing of Sikh organisations at the county
level, WSC-AR has worked with the Association of Statisticians
of American Religious Bodies (ASARB) and the Glenmary
Research Center (GRC) to expand the Sikh organisation
census reporting to include the Sikh population at
the county level, Singh told IANS.
The US Bureau of Census is currently prohibited by
law from asking a question on religious affiliation;
ASARB therefore has a vital role in collecting data
about religious groups.
It is estimated that about 500,000 Sikhs live in
the US but no breakdown of the Sikh population at
the county or state level is available.