A mosque, or masjid, is the place of worship for Muslims. With the largest Muslim population, California is cited to have more mosques than any other state in the United States. The following map includes the name, contact information and website for masjids in California.
California Mosque Map
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*The information used in the map above was gathered from The Islamic Bulletin
The Islamic Bulletin P.O. Box 410186 San Francisco, CA 94141-0186 E-mail: info@islamicbulletin.org
Islam in the United States
The Muslim population in the United States is demographically diverse, coming from various racial, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. American-Muslims are one the most racially diverse religious groups in the United States according to a 2009 Gallop poll, representing an estimated seventy-seven nations. According to the Pew Research Center 2011 Muslim American Survey, no single racial or ethnic group makes up more than 30% of the total population of the community.
The U.S. Census Bureau does not collect data on religious identification, which has resulted in a wide range of estimates for the population of Muslims in the U.S. Many institutions and organizations have given widely varying estimates of how many Muslims live in the U.S ranging from 1.8 million to 7 million. Based on data from the Pew Research Center’s 2011 survey along with U.S. Census data, Pew Research Center demographers estimate that there were roughly 2.75 million Muslims in the United States in 2011.
California is cited as having the largest Muslim community in the United States, an estimated 1% of the total population of the state. It is also estimated that a majority of the Muslim population resides in Southern California.
While there is some debate about when the first mosques were founded in the United States, the majority of early mosques were founded by immigrant populations in the early 20th century. California is cited as having more mosques than any other state in the U.S.
According to the 2001 report from the Mosque Study Project 2000 (PDF), the U.S. Muslim population tends to be dispersed with mosques located in near-equal percentages in each region of the country. A 2010 Pew report shows that the number of mosques in the United States has increased from 1,209 to 1,825 in the decade since the 2001 report.
According to the Pew Research Center, about half of American Muslims (47%) attend religious services at least once a week, while one-third (34%) attend services at a mosque once or twice a month or a few times a year; 19% say they seldom or never attend religious services. Muslims attend religious services more frequently than do Americans overall (36% weekly or more), about at the same rate as U.S. Christians (45%) and less frequently than evangelical Protestants (64%).
The following listing of mosques in California was gathered from a variety of publically available sources and validated by staff at the University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture. The sources used include the Shura Council of Southern California and the Islamic Bulletin among other sources.
Resources
Council on Foreign Relations: Muslims in the United States
Council on American-Islamic Relations: The Mosque in America: A National Portrait
Pew Research Center: Controversies Over Mosques and Islamic Centers Across the U.S., Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream, 2011 Muslim American Survey
