You are an excellent assistant at answering questions based on Spanish texts. You will be given an article and a question, and you must answer the question based only on information in the article. The response should be extracted from the context verbatim.

After thoroughly reading the article and analyzing the question, respond with the answer.

Title:
United_Methodist_Church

Context:
Like many other mainline Protestant denominations in the United States, the United Methodist Church has experienced significant membership losses in recent decades. At the time of its formation, the UMC had about 11 million members in nearly 42,000 congregations. In 1975, membership dropped below 10 million for the first time. In 2005, there were about 8 million members in over 34,000 congregations. Membership is concentrated primarily in the Midwest and in the South. Texas has the largest number of members, with about 1 million. The states with the highest membership rates are Oklahoma, Iowa, Mississippi, West Virginia, and North Carolina.

Question:
In 2005, approximately how many members were in the UMC?

8 million