|
Religion
|
Africa
|
Asia
|
Europe
|
Latin America
|
Northern America
|
Oceania
|
World
|
%
|
Number of countries
|
|
Christians
|
360.874.000
|
303.127.000
|
555.614.000
|
455.819.000
|
255.542.000
|
24.253.000
|
1.955.229.000
|
33.7
|
260
|
|
Roman Catholics
|
125.376.000
|
94.250.000
|
269.021.000
|
408.968.000
|
75.398.000
|
8.452.000
|
981.465.000
|
16.9
|
249
|
|
Protestants
|
114.726.000
|
45.326.000
|
79.534.000
|
34.816.000
|
121.361.000
|
8.257.000
|
404.020.000
|
7.0
|
236
|
|
Orthodox
|
25.215.000
|
13.970.000
|
171.665.000
|
460
|
6.390.000
|
650
|
218.350.000
|
3.8
|
105
|
|
Anglicans
|
27.200.000
|
650
|
28.357.000
|
1.089.000
|
6.300.000
|
5.540.000
|
69.136.000
|
1.2
|
158
|
|
Other Christians
|
68.357.000
|
148.931.000
|
7.037.000
|
10.486.000
|
46.093.000
|
1.354.000
|
282.258.000
|
4.9
|
118
|
|
unaffiliated Christians
|
60.234.000
|
11.561.000
|
29.376.000
|
12.164.000
|
54.148.000
|
4.937.000
|
172.420.000
|
3.0
|
215
|
|
affiliated Christians
|
300.640.000
|
291.566.000
|
526.238.000
|
443.655.000
|
201.394.000
|
19.316.000
|
1.782.809.000
|
30.7
|
260
|
|
Atheists
|
440
|
175.450.000
|
40.845.000
|
3.010.000
|
1.850.000
|
600
|
222.195.000
|
3.8
|
139
|
|
Baha'is
|
1.923.000
|
3.230.000
|
95
|
722
|
357
|
77
|
6.404.000
|
0.1
|
210
|
|
Buddhists
|
38
|
321.985.000
|
1.563.000
|
569
|
920
|
200
|
325.275.000
|
5.6
|
92
|
|
Chinese folk religionists
|
13
|
220.653.000
|
120
|
68
|
100
|
17
|
220.971.000
|
3.8
|
60
|
|
Confucianists
|
1
|
5.050.000
|
4.5
|
2.5
|
27
|
1
|
5.086.000
|
0.1
|
12
|
|
Ethnic religionists
|
70.250.000
|
30.350.000
|
1.150.000
|
1.042.000
|
45
|
108
|
102.945.000
|
1.8
|
104
|
|
Hindus
|
1.986.000
|
786.991.000
|
1.650.000
|
760
|
1.365.000
|
323
|
793.075.000
|
13.7
|
94
|
|
Jains
|
59
|
4.835.000
|
16
|
4.5
|
4.5
|
1
|
4.920.000
|
0.1
|
11
|
|
Jews
|
165
|
4.257.000
|
2.432.000
|
1.084.000
|
5.836.000
|
92
|
13.866.000
|
0.2
|
134
|
|
Mandeans
|
0
|
45
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
45
|
0.0
|
2
|
|
Muslims
|
308.660.000
|
778.362.000
|
32.032.000
|
1.356.000
|
5.530.000
|
385
|
1.126.325.000
|
19.4
|
184
|
|
New-Religionists
|
21
|
103.361.000
|
803
|
919
|
900
|
11
|
106.015.000
|
1.8
|
27
|
|
Nonreligious
|
3.567.000
|
752.759.000
|
90.389.500
|
16.053.000
|
21.315.000
|
2.845.000
|
886.928.500
|
15.3
|
226
|
|
Parsees
|
1.5
|
185
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
190.5
|
0.0
|
10
|
|
Shintoists
|
0
|
2.893.000
|
1
|
1
|
1.5
|
1
|
2.897.500
|
0.0
|
12
|
|
Sikhs
|
37
|
18.465.000
|
494
|
9
|
496
|
7
|
19.508.000
|
0.3
|
21
|
|
Spiritists
|
4.5
|
1.120.000
|
18
|
8.834.000
|
315
|
1
|
10.292.500
|
0.2
|
30
|
|
Other religionists
|
90
|
100
|
450
|
190
|
1.072.000
|
50
|
1.952.000
|
0.0
|
182
|
|
Non-Christians
|
387.256.000
|
3.210.091.000
|
172.064.000
|
34.625.000
|
40.135.000
|
4.720.000
|
3.848.891.000
|
66.3
|
262
|
|
Total population
|
748.130.000
|
3.513.218.000
|
727.678.000
|
490.444.000
|
295.677.000
|
28.973.000
|
5.804.120.000
|
100.0
|
262
|
|
Continents. These follow current UN
demographic terminology. UN practice began by
dividing the world into 5 continents in 1949, then
into 18 regions (1954), then into 8 major
continental areas (called macro regions in 1987)
and 24 regions (1963), then into 7 major areas and
22 regions (1988), and most recently into the 6
major areas shown above and 21 regions (1994). See
United Nations, World Population Prospects: The
1994 Revision (New York: UN, 1995), with
populations of all continents, regions, and
countries covering the period 1950–2025. The
table above therefore combines its former columns
"East Asia" and "South Asia" into one single
continental area, "Asia," which also now includes
the former Soviet Central Asian states. Note also
that "Europe" now extends eastward to Vladivostok,
the Sea of Japan, and the Bering Strait
|
|
Countries. The last column enumerates
sovereign and nonsovereign countries in which each
religion or religious grouping has a numerically
significant following.
|
|
Rows. The list of non-Christian religions
is arranged in alphabetical order.
|
|
Adherents. As defined and enumerated for
each of the world's countries in World Christian
Encyclopedia (1982), projected to mid-1996,
adjusted for recent data.
|
|
Christians. Followers of Jesus Christ
affiliated with churches (church members, including
children: 1,782,809,000) plus persons professing in
censuses or polls though not so affiliated.
|
|
Other Christians. Denotes Catholics
(non-Roman), marginal Protestants,
crypto-Christians, and adherents of African, Asian,
Black, and Latin-American indigenous
churches.
|
|
Atheists. Persons professing atheism,
skepticism, disbelief, or irreligion, including
antireligious (opposed to all religion).
|
|
Buddhists. 56% Mahayana, 38% Theravada
(Hinayana), 6% Tentrayana (Lamaism).
|
|
Chinese folk religionists. Followers of
the traditional Chinese religion (local deities,
ancestor veneration, Confucian ethics, Taoism,
universism, divination, some Buddhist
elements).
|
|
Confucianists. Non-Chinese followers of
Confucius and Confucianism, mostly Koreans in
Korea.
|
|
Hindus. 70% Vaishnavites, 25% Shaivites,
2% neo-Hindus and reform Hindus.
|
|
Jews. Adherents of Judaism. For detailed
data on "core" Jewish population, see the annual
"World Jewish Populations" article in the American
Jewish Committee's American Jewish Year Book.
|
|
Muslims. 83% Sunnites, 16% Shi'ites, 1%
other schools. Up to 1990 the ethnic Muslims in the
former U.S.S.R. who had embraced communism were not
included as Muslims in this table. After the
collapse of communism in 1990–91, these ethnic
Muslims were once again enumerated as Muslims if
they had returned to Islamic profession and
practice.
|
|
New-Religionists. Followers of Asian
20th-century New Religions, New Religious
movements, radical new crisis religions, and
non-Christian syncretistic mass religions.
|
|
Nonreligious. Persons professing no
religion, nonbelievers, agnostics, freethinkers,
dereligionized secularists indifferent to all
religion.
|
|
Other religionists. Including 70 minor
world religions and a large number of spiritist
religions, New Age religions, quasi religions,
pseudo religions, parareligions, religious or
mystic systems,religious and semireligious
brotherhoods of numerous varieties.
|
|
Total population. UN medium variant
figures for mid-1996, as given in World Population
Prospects: The 1994 Revision (New York: UN,
1995).
|
Sumber: EncyclopædiaBritannica,
Inc.
|