Tasmania's North-West has often been described as a Bible belt, but the numbers suggest "heathen belt" would be a more accurate description.

Slightly more than half of North-West and West Coast residents (50.6 per cent) listed themselves as having no religion in the Australian Bureau of Statistics' 2021 census.

That was the highest regional rate in the least religious state (49.6 per cent).

Tasmanians were much more likely to have no religion than Australians as a whole (38.4 per cent).

Rodney Croome is best known as an LGBTIQA+ advocate.

The North-West resident has also written extensively on Tasmanian history for storytelling.

Mr Croome said it seemed like a paradox that the North-West was labelled the Bible Belt and was also the part of Tasmania with the most non-religious people

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