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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Nearly three-fourths of American Latter-day Saints live in the West, and four in 10 live in Utah, new figures from the Pew Research Center show.

Surveys done over the last two years found that 74 percent of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the nation live in Western U.S. states even though just less than one-fourth of the total U.S. population lives in the West.

Just less than 40 percent of American Latter-day Saints live in Utah, where the church has its worldwide headquarters, the Pew Research Center survey found. Utah is home to just 1 percent of the U.S. population.

Church statistics show there are 6.3 million church members in the U.S, less than half of the 14.7 million members worldwide.

Pew Research Center says about 2 percent of Americans self-identify as Mormons.

LDS Geographic Distribution % of adults living in ... U.S. LDS U.S. general public Northeast 5% 18% Midwest 8% 22% South 14% 37% West 74% 23% Utah 39% 1% Other states 61% 99%

A previous poll done by the organization found that the perception of church members in the U.S. changed very little from 2011 to 2012 even though the religion received unprecedented attention with Republican Mitt Romney running for president last year.

There does, however, appear to be a warming in feelings toward the LDS, with the previous survey discovering that nearly a quarter of Americans now use positive terms to describe Mormons as "good people," ''dedicated" and "hardworking," whereas last year it was 18 percent.

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