The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, commonly referred to as the Foursquare Church, is a Protestant evangelical Pentecostal Christian denomination founded in 1923 by preacher Aimee Semple McPherson. As of 2000, it had a worldwide membership of over 8,000,000, with almost 60,000 churches in 144 countries. In 2006, membership in the United States was 353,995 in 1,875 churches. While congregations are concentrated along the West Coast, the denomination is well distributed across the United States. The states with the highest membership rates are Oregon, Hawaii, Montana, Washington, and California. The church maintains its headquarters in Los Angeles, California.