Americas Overview
Of the approximately 4.6 million Muslims in the Americas, which includes 51 countries and territories, more than half, or about 2.5 million, live in the United States.1 But Canada has more than double the percentage of Muslims in the United States. Two percent of Canadians, about 700,000 people, are Muslim; in contrast, 0.8% of the U.S. population is Muslim.
Suriname is the country in the region with the largest Muslim population percentage, at about 16%. Guyana is next, at about 7% Muslim, and Trinidad and Tobago is about 6% Muslim. Argentina, with about 800,000 Muslims, is home to the largest number of Muslims in South America. Less than 1% of Mexico's population is Muslim.
Countries in the Americas with the Largest Number of Muslims
| Estimated 2009
Muslim Population | Percentage of
Population that
is Muslim | Percentage of
World Muslim
Population |
|---|
United States | 2,454,000 | 0.8% | 0.2% |
Argentina | 784,000 | 1.9 | 0.1 |
Canada | 657,000 | 2.0 | <0.1 |
Brazil | 191,000 | 0.1 | <0.1 |
Mexico* | 110,000 | <1 | <1 |
Venezuela | 94,000 | 0.3 | <0.1 |
Suriname | 83,000 | 15.9 | <0.1 |
Trinidad and Tobago | 78,000 | 5.8 | <0.1 |
Guyana | 55,000 | 7.2 | <0.1 |
Panama | 24,000 | 0.7 | <0.1 |
Rest of Region | 67,000 | <0.1 | <0.1 |
Regional Total | 4,596,000 | 0.5 | 0.3 |
World Total | 1,571,198,000 | 22.9 | 100.0 |
* Data for Mexico come primarily from general population surveys, which are less reliable than censuses or large-scale demographic and health surveys for estimating minority-majority ratios (see Methodology). As a result, the percentage of the population that is Muslim in Mexico is rounded to the nearest integer.
Note: Figures may not sum to totals due to rounding. Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life • Mapping the Global Muslim Population, October 2009 |
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Footnote
1 There has been considerable debate over the exact number of Muslims in the United States. The 2.5 million figure is a projection for 2009 based on the Pew Research Center's 2007 survey "Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream" and available Census Bureau data, adjusted for U.S. population growth. For a discussion of the larger debate, see http://pewresearch.org/pubs/532/questions-muslim-survey.