Houston, TX

Houston is the largest city with an openly gay mayor. But the LGBT community seems less visible here.

A newly released Gallup survey provides the most extensive look ever at where the adult population lives who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

What’s most interesting about the survey however is the narrow variation between the cities with the largest and smallest LGBT communities. The lowest-placed metro – Birmingham, Alabama – falls just 1 percent below the national average of 3.6 percent. Houston is only 0.3 percent the average. San Francisco has the largest LGBT community at 6.2 percent.

Gallup notes that LGBT populations show “fairly even distribution, at least in comparison to the many other pronounced geographic differences found on race, ethnic, political and ideological variables.”

Still, there are obvious trends. Austin and New Orleans were the lone southern metro areas among the largest LGBT communities. No city in the Midwest ranked among the 10 metros. Southern metros featured prominently among the lowest-placing areas.

The responses don’t necessarily mean that southern cities have fewer gay residents, just a smaller number who are willing to identify themselves as part of the community when surveyed.