BLACK Americans are the most religious group in the US while Asian Americans were far less religious, according to a Gallup poll.

In the new survey released on July 1, the pollster found that 53 percent of black Americans were identified as being “very religious,” with 33 percent saying they were “moderately religious.”

Asian Americans were far less religious, according to Gallup, exhibiting the highest percentage of any group identifying themselves as “nonreligious” – 29 percent of Asians said they were “very religious,” 32 percent were moderately religious” and 39 percent “nonreligious.”

Interestingly, only 39 percent of white Americans said they were “very religious” and only 26 percent said they were “moderately religious.”

Only 13 percent of blacks said they were “nonreligious,” versus 34 percent of whites.

Gallup said Hispanic Americans were the second most religious ethnic group, with 45 percent saying they were “very religious,” and 33 percent “moderately religious” — a total of 78 percent religious. Only 22 percent of Hispanics said they were nonreligious.

According to Gallup, the three religious groups — “very religious”/ “moderately religious”/ “nonreligious” – are defined by a combination of how important respondents say religion is to them and how often they say they attend religious services.

The findings are based on Gallup Daily tracking interviews conducted January through May of this year. A random sample of 145,618 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia were polled for the survey. Among those adults, 115,577 were non-Hispanic whites, 10,704 were Hispanics, 10,174 were non-Hispanic blacks and 2,407 were Asians. The maximum margin of error for all samples is plus-or-minus 1 percentage point, with a 95 percent confidence factor, Gallup added.