Fraternity size
 

What are the largest fraternities in the world, both by members and by chapters?

Hi Tank,

I believe Tau Kappa Epsilon is one of the
largest Fraternities. Why do you ask?

As of 1996:
TKE 285
Sig Ep 259
Lambda Chi 225
Sigma Chi 223
Sigma Nu 215
SAE 200
Kappa Sig 197
Phi Delta Theta 184

Its not the size that counts, its how you use it. LXA has like highest avg. chapter size. and we have the record for chapters installed to active chapters. 100 out of 100 in 1950 and were above 90% for a long time after that. Word.

Latest information that I know of...
 

This information was taken from the most recent edition (2002) of Son of the Stars the pledge manual for Beta Theta Pi. It was current probably as of the end of the 2001-2002 academic year. Obviously the numbers have inevitably gone up slightly but again it is very current. I apologize right now for the difficulty in reading this, but previous posts of this material hasn't accepted formating either. see this list on another post.

The fraternity with the most chapters is Tau Kappa Epsilon with 279. The fraternity with the most members is Sigma Alpha Epsilon at about 248,000 members.
Largest sorority based on both chapters and members is Chi Omega with 174 chapters and about 225,000 members.

I'm not even going to try to figure out most members per chapter...sorry OPrime.

Name (Chapters) Members
Acacia (30) 44000
Alpha Chi Rho (50) 30500
Alpha Delta Gamma (12) 7400
Alpha Delta Phi (25) 53400
Alpha Epsilon Pi (92) 66473
Alpha Gamma Rho (62) 53000
Alpha Gamma Sigma (7) 4700
Alpha Kappa Lambda (33) 21959
Alpha Phi Delta (41) 15442
Alpha Sigma Phi (51) 54000
Alpha Tau Omega (157) 170500
Beta Sigma Psi (7) 6651
Beta Theta Pi (126) 167500
Chi Phi (60) 50276
Chi Psi (31) 50000
Delta Chi (117) 75000
Delta Kappa Epsilon (67) 80000
Delta Phi (15) 15000
Delta Psi (10) 7000
Delta Sigma Phi (110) 105000
Delta Tau Delta (118) 133576
Delta Upsilon (86) 105622
FarmHouse (28) 20310
Kappa Alpha Order (126) 115000
Kappa Alpha Society (11) 8532
Kappa Delta Phi (12) 21050
Kappat Delta Rho (45) 20878
Kappa Sigma (224) 200000
Lambda Chi Alpha (206) 225000
Lambda Phi Epsilon (34) 6000
Lambda Sigma Epsilon (20) 600
Lambda Theta Phi (62) 3212
Phi Delta Theta (175) 201000
Phi Gamma Delta (128) 139700
Phi Iota Alpha 53
Phi Kappa Psi (85) 95000
Phi Kappa Sigma (68) 48000
Phi Kappa Tau (86) 74755
Phi Kappa Theta (55) 52000
Phi Lambda Chi (9) 7500
Phi Mu Delta (9) 10800
Phi Sigma Kappa (98) 110000
Phi Sigma Phi (8) 3000
Pi Kappa Alpha (192) 180000
Pi Kappa Phi (129) 73327
Pi Lambda Phi (55) 38243
Psi Upsilon (31) 43000
Sigma Alpha Epsilon (208) 246632
Sigma Alpha Mu (70) 51516
Sigma Chi (228) 232403
Sigma Lambda Beta (48) 2500
Sigma Nu (210) 195963
Sigma Phi (10) 10165
Sigma Phi Epsilon (246) 214970
Sigma Pi (123) 71618
Sigma Tau Gamma (76) 56793
Tau Delta Phi (6) 18000
Tau Epsilon Phi (33) 43313
Tau Kappa Epsilon (279) 208600
Theta Chi (147) 140997
Theta Delta Chi (34) 38236
Theta Xi (52) 57713
Triangle (32) 21800
Zeta Beta Tau (70) 118097
Zeta Psi (50) 48191


Alpha Chi Omega (133) 162929
Alpha Delta Pi (133) 156500
Alpha Epsilon Phi (50) 50000
Alpha Gamma Delta (173) 123836
Alpha Omicron Pi (112) 98849
Alpha Phi (147) 129439
Alpha Sigma Alpha (74) 53670
Alpha Sigma Tau (59) 34205
Alpha Xi Delta (110) 120000
Chi Omega (174) 225000
Delta Delta Delta (130) 162128
Delta Gamma (140) 160000
Delta Phi Epsilon (80) 26000
Delta Zeta (165) 137813
Gamma Phi Beta (109) 103688
Kappa Alpha Theta (124) 170821
Kappa Kappa Gamma (120) 150000
Phi Mu (132) 131825
Phi Sigma Sigma (109) 36600
Pi Beta Phi (128) 180656
Sigma Delta Tau (59) 40000
Sigma Kappa (113) 117290
Sigma Sigma Sigma (104) 77115
Theta Phi Alpha (30) 14794
Zeta Tau Alpha (140) 102407

I would have to agree! Personally I would not want to have the largest fraternity on campus. I would much rather get to know my brothers (ya know like the whole brotherhood thing). Some of our Rushees told me that some of the brothers of really big chapters on campus could introduce another brother to him because he did not know the guy....I don't ever want that to be true of my chapter!!!

uh oh
 

uh oh

when you mention the "large chapters...distal brotherhood/sisterhood"...you're opening a can of worms :eek:

Personally thugh, coming from a larger fraternity I have to say that our last Grand Chapter (national convention) was one of the best times I've ever had. Imagine a huge hotel filled with primarily your brothers... Going out on the town in Toronto and at every bar or club you step into there are your brothers from somewhere accross the country. Hell of an experience. I know smaller groups have conventions but they couldn't possibly be on the same scale.

Ktsnake

I think that Pi Kapp Raider was referring to local chapter size, not national presence.

As you know, there has a been a lot of debate on Greekchat about whether or not chapter size matters.

As far as nationals go, I personally think the bigger the better.

He said by both members and chapters... That 215 looks about right for our chapter #'s that are active (although we have 272 chapters over history).. I know that we do have over 200,000 initiates though... 195K was a few years ago.

May I just say how AWESOME it is that Beta gives its pledges all that info? This goes with the other thread where we were talking about sororities needing to do more NPC education. The numbers may not be dead on perfect, but at least they're an estimate and you can get familiar with the names.

Thanks for the great info on NIC/NPC groups, Betarulz! Really interesting. I'm curious, if you know: are the membership numbers for the various groups total initiates or living initiates?

As for non-NIC/NPC groups, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia (which is a social fraternity but is not a member of the NIC . . . yet, at least) currently has 202 active chapters, five colonies, 104,600 living initiates, and over 200,000 initiates since 1898.

What info does anyone have about other non-NIC/NPC groups?

Cat,

Very good question. I went to www.delts.org, and it lists 139, 492 total initiates, of which 106,786 are living.

So, it sounds like Beta's numbers may be a couple of years out of date (but still worthwhile for the sake of this discussion) -- and probably total initiates.

Re: Latest information that I know of...
 

Did you leave out Kappa Delta or did your pledge manual? You only have 25 of the 26 NPC sororities listed. I'm not sure of our current numbers, so i was just wondering.

Re: Re: Latest information that I know of...
 

The pledge manual is missing the numbers for Kappa Delta, sorry :( I'm not sure why this is. If anyone can post this data I'm sure many would be appreciative.

This is TOTAL initiates, as I know that Beta's numbers are a very close approximation. Of course these numbers are only a snapshot of the member fraternities and are already technically out of date. Beta's number of chapters actually changed the day I bought my new edition of the manual. Two colonies recieved their charters that day.

While at one time in way back history, LXA and TKE talked of merger, I 1939- TKN and LXA Mergege making it the largest at the and is still in Greek History.

In The 1960s., LXA and TKE were on a be the biggest and fought like hell, ask E C, A TKE will know, and I have a very good idea
As I know for the moment, PSE is the largest, All Of us or trying to find the right Chapters whether through re-colonization or chartereing is not important.

The important thing is that there are more of them! The Greek Haters!

An unconfirmed rumour I heard at a recent Grand Chapter is that at one time (far in the past I'm sure) TKE and SN were talking merger. Anyone able to shed some light on that one?

I think your numbers are a little off for LXA, last i was told we are up to 243,000 with 206,000 living. but the info is very interesting, i wish we had that in our new member books. we use to have a section that showed all the diferent brother/pledge pins but not anymore.

Pike is now over 210,000 total initiates and 206 or 207 chapters.

We've also had the most pledgings and initiations for the last few years. To give you an idea of how fast we are growing...

From 1868-1981 we initiated 100,000 men
From 1981-present we've initiated more than 100,000 men

It's nice to be a part of such a fast-growing organization!

The good news is that the anti-greeks at our schools are wrong.

The numbers don't lie.

They say that GLO's are a dieing. They say we've outlived our purpose. Yet we continue to grow at a record pace every single year! It doesn't make much sense does it?

I think one of you has to have the incorrect numbers for Sig Ep...because I can only think of a few chapters that have been lost, and a lot more that have been started...like the one on my campus! They also, for what it's worth, claim to be the only fraternity that is currently growing, while all the others are declining.

A lot of us claim the same thing then:D

While we've lost a few chapters over the last few years and only started one new one (mine) since 1999 (we were this year) we are still growing because we recharter a lot of chapters that had lost their charters previously.

Never heard of that one, but it would be hard to imagine. Campuses with both fraternties would combine into one? I really doubt they would ever merge. I don't think either fraterntiy would want to give up their name or history.

That's what I thought as well... I *really* couldn't imagine merging with the TKE's here at Central Oklahoma. We've been at odds for quite a while.

I heard it was somewhere a long time ago though.

Mergers in this day and age would be difficult, but they did happen in the past.

Delta Tau Delta merged with the former Rainbow Fraternity (chapters of which were mostly in the South). I'm not sure of the timing, but I think it was in the 1800's. That is why, in honor of the former fraternity, our magazine is called "The Rainbow." Their former ritual, "The Rite of Iris," is now an "open" ceremony used by many of our chapters during the week prior to initiation.

Now, before the less mature decide to take a cheap shot at the present day ramifications of the word "rainbow," don't even go there.

At Karnea (international conference) a couple of years ago, there was a move to change the magazine name (in fact, it was changed to "1858," the year of our founding for a couple of issues), but it was decided to retain the old name in in honor of our former brothers. I strongly support that decision -- honor and tradition being more important, I think, than modern stereotypes and new usages of words.

I have great respect for organizations that honor those they absorbed in the past. At the Sigma Nu Headquarters in Lexington, VA there are many badges of organizations that we absorbed in the past on display. Not sure if any of them were big or if all of them were locals.

I'd like to know though.

not bad but we were start in 1909 and hit the 200,000 mark in 1992. on 83 years ;)

From what I have heard via the grape vine, many Internationals are in dire $$$$$ straits and there are merger talks going on all of the time! Small with larger, just to survive as some form of entity!

LXA went to larger Schools and help TKN go to smaller less prestigoious state schools.

Back when, LXA and TKE talked of a merger but could not come to a decision, go figure.



The merger with TKN was made in heaven so to speak. LXA helped them start, and the merger worked to expand the Group to both Large and small schools. It is is still the largest in Greekdom History.

The merger between the 2 led to the LXA Associate Pin and the Ritual became the New Associate Ritual.

The Coat of Arms were combined into one from both and has been the same since.

Greeks are being hurt by daily reparts of Organizations kiked off of Campuses because of Stupidty and it reflects on each and everyone one of us and our individual Organizations!

We are Not Growing overall, we are slowly dieing.

It runs in cycles, we may grow again at a good rate, but who in the hell can say? :eek:

Fraternity size
 

Right now, Sig Ep has 261 total chapters, (give or take a couple) and 13,500 current undergraduate members, and 245,000 total initiates. More men have joined Sig Ep in the last ten years than any other national fraternity.


Sigma Phi Epsilon-"Virtue, Diligence, and Brotherly Love, the only three things that matter"

Great Information
 

This still proves the point that I have made many times over!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If one needs a question asked, here is the place to do it! We have to many great people who can dig it out!:)

While bigger may be better, there are many ways to look at it!

In the heyday of expansion LXA and TKE were battleing it out for new Chapters (60's). Who will be the biggest!?

As most of us have found, Chapters drift off, get booted.

I know LXA and TKE both are in the process of reoping closed chapters and colonizing new schools. I am a firm beleiver of this!

We as Greeks are in a diminishing group which is a sad state of wheaties!

As far as Chapters, who is the biggest? If you are to big and do not know who your Brothers/Sisters are, It is to damn big! :eek:

I knew every Brother and after 599 Initiates, I can say, I still know a heck of a lot. Also Brothers from several other Chapters who I am Proud to have mt and call Friends :)

How big is big, when it gets to big at the local level!

SAE is over 260,000 total initiates.

Anyone have current size ranking info? SigEp currently sits at over 14,000 undergraduate members, over 267,000 lifetime members, and over 260 chapters across the country.