The term “Bible Belt,” a familiar label associated with religion in the South, was coined by journalist H.L. Mencken following his coverage of the Scopes “monkey” trial in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925. It has been used regularly since that time to refer to a religiously conservative or fundamentalist region in the American South and sometimes the Midwest, though its exact geographic extent remains debatable. Geographers have attempted to define the location of the Bible Belt in the past. Most notably Heatwole defined the geographic extent of the Bible Belt in a 1978 article using 1971 data from the Glenmary Research Center. We replicate his effort for 1971, but add cartographic and statistical analyses for 1980, 1990 and 2000. Changes in the Belt’s location have occurred as a result of new migrants to the South as well as shifts within the region itself. The Bible Belt region today stretches from northern Texas to western North Carolina, and from Mississippi north to Kentucky. Also the region’s core or “buckle” was located in eastern Tennessee in the 1970s, but by 2000 it had moved west to northcentral Texas and southwestern Oklahoma. Dynamism and fluidity as well as tradition continue to be important forces shaping the region’s religious landscapes.
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