|
Religion
|
Africa
|
Asia
|
Europe
|
Latin America
|
Northern America
|
Oceania
|
World
|
%
|
Number of countries
|
|
Christians
|
348.176.000
|
306.762.000
|
551.892.000
|
448.006.000
|
249.277.000
|
23.840.000
|
1.927.953.000
|
33.7
|
260
|
|
Roman Catholics
|
122.108.000
|
90.041.000
|
270.677.000
|
402.691.000
|
74.243.000
|
8.265.000
|
968.025.000
|
16.9
|
249
|
|
Protestants
|
109.726.000
|
42.836.000
|
80.000.000
|
31.684.000
|
123.257.000
|
8.364.000
|
395.867.000
|
6.9
|
236
|
|
Orthodox
|
29.645.000
|
14.881.000
|
165.795.000
|
481
|
6.480.000
|
666
|
217.948.000
|
3.8
|
105
|
|
Anglicans
|
25.362.000
|
707
|
30.625.000
|
1.153.000
|
6.819.000
|
5.864.000
|
70.530.000
|
1.2
|
158
|
|
Other Christians
|
61.335.000
|
158.297.000
|
4.795.000
|
11.997.000
|
38.478.000
|
681
|
275.583.000
|
4.8
|
118
|
|
Atheists
|
427
|
174.174.000
|
40.085.000
|
2.977.000
|
1.670.000
|
592
|
219.925.000
|
3.8
|
139
|
|
Baha'is
|
1.851.000
|
3.010.000
|
93
|
719
|
356
|
75
|
6.104.000
|
0.1
|
210
|
|
Buddhists
|
36
|
320.691.000
|
1.478.000
|
569
|
920
|
200
|
323.894.000
|
5.7
|
92
|
|
Chinese folk religionists
|
12
|
224.828.000
|
116
|
66
|
98
|
17
|
225.137.000
|
3.9
|
60
|
|
Confucianists
|
1
|
5.220.000
|
4
|
2
|
26
|
1
|
5.254.000
|
0.1
|
12
|
|
Ethnic religionists
|
72.777.000
|
36.579.000
|
1.200.000
|
1.061.000
|
47
|
113
|
111.777.000
|
2.0
|
104
|
|
Hindus
|
1.535.000
|
775.252.000
|
1.522.000
|
748
|
1.185.000
|
305
|
780.547.000
|
13.7
|
94
|
|
Jains
|
58
|
4.804.000
|
15
|
4
|
4
|
1
|
4.886.000
|
0.1
|
11
|
|
Jews
|
163
|
4.294.000
|
2.529.000
|
1.098.000
|
5.942.000
|
91
|
14.117.000
|
0.2
|
134
|
|
Mandeans
|
0
|
44
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
44
|
0.0
|
2
|
|
Muslims
|
300.317.000
|
760.181.000
|
31.975.000
|
1.329.000
|
5.450.000
|
382
|
1.099.634.000
|
19.2
|
184
|
|
New-Religionists
|
19
|
118.591.000
|
808
|
913
|
956
|
10
|
121.297.000
|
2.1
|
27
|
|
Nonreligious
|
2.573.000
|
701.175.000
|
94.330.000
|
15.551.000
|
25.050.000
|
2.870.000
|
841.549.000
|
14.7
|
226
|
|
Parsees
|
1
|
184
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
189
|
0.0
|
3
|
|
Sikhs
|
36
|
18.130.000
|
490
|
8
|
490
|
7
|
19.161.000
|
0.3
|
21
|
|
Shintoists
|
0
|
2.840.000
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
2.844.000
|
0.0
|
4
|
|
Spiritists
|
4
|
1.100.000
|
17
|
8.768.000
|
300
|
1
|
10.190.000
|
0.2
|
30
|
|
Other religionists
|
88
|
98
|
443
|
184
|
1.068.000
|
42
|
1.923.000
|
0.0
|
182
|
|
Non-Christians
|
379.898.000
|
3.151.195.000
|
175.107.000
|
33.999.000
|
43.564.000
|
4.709.000
|
3.788.472.000
|
66.3
|
262
|
|
Total population
|
728.074.000
|
3.457.957.000
|
726.999.000
|
482.005.000
|
292.841.000
|
28.549.000
|
5.716.425.000
|
100.0
|
262
|
|
Continents. These follow current UN
demographic practice, which divides the world into
the 6 major areas shown above and 21 regions
(1994). See United Nations, World Population
Prospects: The 1994 Revision (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
U.S.S.R. Central Asian republics. 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-1995,
adjusted for recent data.
|
|
Christians. Followers of Jesus Christ
affiliated with churches (church members, including
children: 1,791,227,000) plus persons professing in
censuses or polls though not so affiliated.
|
|
Other Christians. This term in the above
table 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% Tantrayana (Lamaism).
|
|
Chinese folk religionists. Followers of the
traditional Chinese religion (local deities,
ancestor veneration, Confucian ethics, Taoism,
universism, divination, some Buddist 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 "World Jewish
Populations" 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 in
cases where they have 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, all
founded since 1800 and most since 1945.
|
|
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-1995, as given in World Population
Prospects: The 1994 Revision (1995).
|
Sumber: EncyclopædiaBritannica,
Inc.
|