Executive Summary
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Worldwide, more than eight-in-ten people identify with a religious group. A comprehensive
demographic study of more than 230 countries and territories conducted by the Pew Research
Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life estimates that there are 5.8 billion religiously
affiliated adults and children around the globe, representing 84% of the 2010 world population
of 6.9 billion.
The demographic study – based on analysis
of more than 2,500 censuses, surveys and
population registers – finds 2.2 billion
Christians (32% of the world’s population),
1.6 billion Muslims (23%), 1 billion Hindus
(15%), nearly 500 million Buddhists (7%) and
14 million Jews (0.2%) around the world as
of 2010. In addition, more than 400 million
people (6%) practice various folk or traditional
religions, including African traditional
religions, Chinese folk religions, Native
American religions and Australian aboriginal
religions. An estimated 58 million people –
slightly less than 1% of the global population –
belong to other religions, including the Baha’i
faith, Jainism, Sikhism, Shintoism, Taoism,
Tenrikyo, Wicca and Zoroastrianism, to
mention just a few.1
At the same time, the new study by the Pew
Forum also finds that roughly one-in-six
people around the globe (1.1 billion, or 16%)
have no religious affiliation. This makes the
unaffiliated the third-largest religious group
worldwide, behind Christians and Muslims, and about equal in size to the world’s Catholic
population. Surveys indicate that many of the unaffiliated hold some religious or spiritual
beliefs (such as belief in God or a universal spirit) even though they do not identify with a
particular faith. (See Religiously Unaffiliated.)
Geographic Distribution
The geographic distribution of religious groups varies considerably. Several religious groups
are heavily concentrated in the Asia-Pacific region, including the vast majority of Hindus
(99%), Buddhists (99%), adherents of folk or traditional religions (90%) and members of other
world religions (89%).
Three-quarters of the religiously unaffiliated (76%) also live in the massive and populous Asia-
Pacific region. Indeed, the number of religiously unaffiliated people in China alone (about 700
million) is more than twice the total population of the United States.
The Asia-Pacific region also is home to most of the world’s Muslims (62%). About 20% of
Muslims live in the Middle East and North Africa, and nearly 16% reside in sub-Saharan Africa.
Of the major religious groups covered in this study, Christians are the most evenly dispersed.
Roughly equal numbers of Christians live in Europe (26%), Latin America and the Caribbean
(24%) and sub-Saharan Africa (24%).
A plurality of Jews (44%) live in North America, while about four-in-ten (41%) live in the
Middle East and North Africa – almost all of them in Israel.
Living as Majorities and Minorities
Nearly three-quarters (73%)
of the world’s people live
in countries in which their
religious group makes up a
majority of the population.
Only about a quarter (27%)
of all people live as religious
minorities. (This figure does
not include subgroups of the
eight major groups in this
study, such as Shia Muslims
living in Sunni-majority
countries or Catholics living
in Protestant-majority
countries.)
Overwhelmingly, Hindus
and Christians tend to live
in countries where they are
in the majority. Fully 97%
of all Hindus live in the
world’s three Hindu-majority
countries (India, Mauritius
and Nepal), and nearly nine-in-ten Christians (87%) are found in the world’s 157 Christian-majority
countries. (To see the religious composition of each country, see Religious Composition by Country table.)
Though by smaller margins, most Muslims (73%) and religiously unaffiliated people (71%) also
live in countries in which they are the predominant religious group. Muslims are a majority in 49
countries, including 19 of the 20 countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The religiously
unaffiliated make up a majority of the population in six countries, of which China is by far the
largest. (The others are the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hong Kong, Japan and North Korea.)
Most members of the other major religious groups live in countries in which they are in the
minority. Seven-in-ten Buddhists (72%), for example, live as religious minorities. Just three-in-ten (28%) live in the seven countries where Buddhists are in the majority: Bhutan, Burma
(Myanmar), Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
Israel is the only country with a Jewish majority. There are no countries where members
of other religions (such as Baha’is, Jains, Shintoists, Sikhs, Taoists, followers of Tenrikyo,
Wiccans and Zoroastrians) make up a majority of the population. There are also no countries
where people who identify with folk or traditional religions clearly form a majority.2
Young and Old
Some religions have much younger populations, on average, than others. In part, the age
differences reflect the geographic distribution of religious groups. Those with a large share
of adherents in fast-growing, developing countries tend to have younger populations. Those
concentrated in China and in advanced industrial countries, where population growth is
slower, tend to be older.
The median age of two major groups – Muslims (23 years) and Hindus (26) – is younger than
the median age of the world’s overall population (28).3 All the other groups are older than the
global median. Christians have a median age of 30, followed by members of other religions
(32), adherents of folk or traditional religions (33), the religiously unaffiliated (34) and
Buddhists (34). Jews have the highest median age (36), more than a dozen years older than the
youngest group, Muslims.
About the Study
These are among the key findings of a new study of the global religious landscape conducted
by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life as part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious
Futures project, which analyzes religious change and its impact on societies around the world.
The demographic study explores the size, geographic distribution and median age of eight
major religious groups – including the unaffiliated – that together represent 100% of the
estimated 2010 global population. The study is based on a country-by-country analysis of data
from more than 2,500 national censuses, large-scale surveys and official population registers
that were collected, evaluated and standardized by the Pew Forum’s demographers and other
research staff.4 Many countries have recently conducted a national census or are in the midst
of doing so. Therefore, new data are likely to emerge over the next few years. However, a datacollection
cut-off had to be made at some point; this report is based on information available
as of early 2012.5
For estimates of the religious composition of individual countries, see Religious Composition by Country table. For
details on the methodology used to produce estimates of religious populations in 232 countries
and territories, see Appendix A. For a list of data sources by country, see Appendix B.
To see each country’s and territory’s population broken down by number and percentage into
the eight major religious groups in the study, see the sortable tables at http://features.pewforum.org/grl/population-number.php.
There are some minor differences between the estimates presented in this study and
previous Pew Forum estimates of Christian and Muslim populations around the world. These
differences reflect the availability of new data sources, such as recently released censuses in a
few countries, and the use of population growth projections to update estimates in countries
with older primary sources. (For more details, see the Methodology.)
Defining the Religious Groups
This study is based on self-identification. It seeks to estimate the number of people around
the world who view themselves as belonging to various religious groups. It does not attempt
to measure the degree to which members of these groups actively practice their faiths or how
religious they are.
In order to obtain statistics that are comparable across countries, the study attempts to count
groups and individuals who self-identify as members of five widely recognized world religions
– Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Jews – as well as people associated with three
other religious categories that may be less familiar:
Folk or Traditional Religions
Folk religions are closely tied to a particular people, ethnicity or tribe. In some cases, elements
of other world religions are blended with local beliefs and customs. These faiths often have no
formal creeds or sacred texts. Examples of folk religions include African traditional religions,
Chinese folk religions, Native American religions and Australian aboriginal religions.
The Religiously Unaffiliated
The religiously unaffiliated population includes atheists, agnostics and people who do not
identify with any particular religion in surveys. However, many of the religiously unaffiliated
do hold religious or spiritual beliefs. For example, various surveys have found that belief in
God or a higher power is shared by 7% of unaffiliated Chinese adults, 30% of unaffiliated
French adults and 68% of unaffiliated U.S. adults.6
Other Religions
The “other religions” category is diverse and comprises groups not classified elsewhere. This
category includes followers of religions that often are not measured separately in censuses and
surveys: the Baha’i faith, Jainism, Shintoism, Sikhism, Taoism, Tenrikyo, Wicca, Zoroastrianism
and many other religions. Because of the lack of data on these faiths in many countries, the
Pew Forum has not attempted to estimate the size of individual religions within this category,
though some rough estimates are available from other sources. (See Spotlight on Other Religions.)
Roadmap to the Report
These and other findings are discussed in more detail in the remainder of this report, which is
divided into eight sections – one for each of the major religious groupings, in order of size:
To discuss the geographic distribution of religious groups, this report divides the world into six
major regions: Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East
and North Africa, North America and sub-Saharan Africa. For a list of countries in each region,
see the Methodology.
Footnotes:
1 Although some faiths in the “other religions” category have millions of adherents around the world, censuses and surveys in many countries do not measure them specifically. Estimates of the global size of these faiths generally come from other sources, such as the religious groups themselves. By far the largest of these groups are Sikhs, who number about 25 million, according to the World Religion Database. For more information, see Spotlight on Other Religions. (return to text)
2 For a discussion of the challenges of measuring the pervasiveness of folk or traditional religions, see the section on Folk Religionists. (return to text)
3 The median in a population is the midpoint when the entire population is ordered by some characteristic, such as age or income. If everyone alive in 2010
lined up from youngest to oldest, the person in the middle (the median) would be 28 years old. (return to text)
4 A population register is a list of all permanent residents of a country. See the United Nations Statistics Division’s description of population registers (http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/sources/popreg/popregmethods.htm). (return to text)
5 For instance, in December 2012, just before the release of this report, new religion data were released from the 2011 Census of England and Wales. The new data suggest a slightly different religious landscape than the estimate made by this study for the broader United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland
and Northern Ireland), which is based primarily on the 2010 Annual Population Survey carried out by the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics.(return to text)
6 For more information on the beliefs and practices of religiously unaffiliated adults in the United States, see the Pew Forum’s October 2012 report "'Nones' on the Rise." The Pew Forum’s U.S. surveys typically ask about belief in “God or a universal spirit.” French results are based on a Pew Forum analysis of
2008 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) data. The ISSP survey asks about belief in God or a “higher power of some kind.” Chinese results are
based on a Pew Forum analysis of the 2007 Spiritual Life Study of Chinese Residents, conducted by the Chinese polling firm Horizon. In China, the belief in
God statistic measures belief in God, gods, spirits, ghosts or Buddha. (return to text)