|
Religion
|
Africa
|
Asia
|
Europe
|
Latin America
|
Northern America
|
Oceania
|
World
|
%
|
Number of countries
|
|
Christians
|
351,276,000
|
306,401,000
|
559,212,000
|
473,713,000
|
258,770,000
|
24,809,000
|
1,974,181,000
|
33.0
|
238
|
|
Affiliated Christians
|
326,569,000
|
300,917,000
|
536,420,000
|
468,312,000
|
210,455,000
|
21,118,000
|
1,863,791,000
|
31.2
|
238
|
|
Roman Catholics
|
117,277,000
|
108,437,000
|
285,668,000
|
454,105,000
|
70,652,000
|
8,097,000
|
1,044,236,000
|
17.5
|
235
|
|
Protestants
|
86,720,000
|
49,140,000
|
77,396,000
|
47,288,000
|
69,523,000
|
7,279,000
|
337,346,000
|
5.6
|
230
|
|
Orthodox
|
34,549,000
|
14,161,000
|
157,772,000
|
543,000
|
6,275,000
|
691,000
|
213,991,000
|
3.6
|
138
|
|
Anglicans
|
41,503,000
|
717,000
|
26,628,000
|
1,081,000
|
3,259,000
|
5,386,000
|
78,574,000
|
1.3
|
168
|
|
Other Christians
|
84,081,000
|
153,105,000
|
29,118,000
|
45,421,000
|
82,320,000
|
1,929,000
|
395,974,000
|
6.6
|
223
|
|
Unaffiliated
Christians
|
24,707,000
|
5,484,000
|
22,792,000
|
5,401,000
|
48,315,000
|
3,691,000
|
110,390,000
|
1.8
|
202
|
|
Non-Christians
|
415,347,000
|
3,327,878,000
|
169,722,000
|
37,632,000
|
48,432,000
|
5,209,000
|
4,004,220,000
|
67.0
|
238
|
|
Atheists
|
411,000
|
121,467,000
|
23,140,000
|
2,717,000
|
1,628,000
|
360,000
|
149,723,000
|
2.5
|
165
|
|
Baha'is
|
1,694,000
|
3,382,000
|
128,000
|
850,000
|
770,000
|
108,000
|
6,932,000
|
0.1
|
221
|
|
Buddhists
|
132,000
|
351,043,000
|
1,533,000
|
635,000
|
2,637,000
|
290,000
|
356,270,000
|
6.0
|
128
|
|
Chinese folk
religionists
|
32,000
|
380,250,000
|
253,000
|
190,000
|
844,000
|
63,000
|
381,632,000
|
6.4
|
91
|
|
Confucianists
|
0
|
6,219,000
|
11,000
|
0
|
0
|
23,000
|
6,253,000
|
0.1
|
15
|
|
Ethnic religionists
|
94,934,000
|
127,260,000
|
1,264,000
|
1,266,000
|
434,000
|
263,000
|
225,421,000
|
3.8
|
144
|
|
Hindus
|
2,312,000
|
792,897,000
|
1,401,000
|
761,000
|
1,308,000
|
349,000
|
799,028,000
|
13.4
|
114
|
|
Jains
|
65,000
|
4,079,000
|
0
|
0
|
7,000
|
0
|
4,151,000
|
0.1
|
10
|
|
Jews
|
212,000
|
4,323,000
|
2,534,000
|
1,133,000
|
6,015,000
|
96,000
|
14,313,000
|
0.2
|
138
|
|
Mandeans
|
0
|
38,000
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
38,000
|
0.0
|
2
|
|
Muslims
|
310,529,000
|
807,034,000
|
31,219,000
|
1,646,000
|
4,389,000
|
292,000
|
1,155,109,000
|
19.3
|
208
|
|
New-Religionists
|
28,000
|
99,734,000
|
156,000
|
613,000
|
813,000
|
62,000
|
101,406,000
|
1.7
|
62
|
|
Shintoists
|
0
|
2,715,000
|
0
|
7,000
|
56,000
|
0
|
2,778,000
|
0.0
|
8
|
|
Sikhs
|
52,000
|
22,015,000
|
238,000
|
0
|
514,000
|
18,000
|
22,837,000
|
0.4
|
34
|
|
Spiritists
|
3,000
|
0
|
131,000
|
11,894,000
|
149,000
|
7,000
|
12,184,000
|
0.2
|
55
|
|
Zoroastrians
|
1,000
|
2,407,000
|
1,000
|
0
|
76,000
|
1,000
|
2,486,000
|
0.0
|
17
|
|
Other religionists
|
65,000
|
23,000
|
235,000
|
96,000
|
591,000
|
9,000
|
1,019,000
|
0.0
|
79
|
|
Nonreligious
|
4,877,000
|
602,992,000
|
107,478,000
|
15,824,000
|
28,201,000
|
3,268,000
|
762,640,000
|
12.8
|
237
|
|
Total
population
|
766,623,000
|
3,634,279,000
|
728,934,000
|
511,345,000
|
307,202,000
|
30,018,000
|
5,978,401,000
|
100.0
|
238
|
|
|
|
Continents. These follow current UN
demographic terminology, which now divides the
world into the six major areas shown above. See
United Nations, World Population Prospects:
The 1996 Revision (New York: UN, 1998), with
populations of all continents, regions, and
countries covering the period 1950-2025. Note that
"Asia" now includes the former Soviet Central Asian
states and "Europe" includes all of Russia and
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 and organized following.
|
|
Adherents. As defined and enumerated for
each of the world's countries in World Christian
Encyclopedia (1982), projected to mid-1999,
adjusted for recent data.
|
|
Christians. Followers of Jesus Christ
affiliated with churches (church members, including
children: 1,863,791,000) plus persons professing in
censuses or polls to be Christians though not so
affiliated. Figures for the subgroups of Christians
do not add up to the totals in the first line
because some Christians adhere to more than one
denomination.
|
|
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
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.
|
|
Ethnic religionists. Followers of local,
tribal, animistic, or shamanistic religions.
|
|
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. Until 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, all
founded since 1800 and most since 1945.
|
|
Other religionists. Including 70 minor
world religions and more than 10,000 national or
local religions and a large number of spiritist
religions, New Age religions, quasi religions,
pseudoreligions, parareligions, religious or mystic
systems, religious and semireligious brotherhoods
of numerous varieties.
|
|
Nonreligious. Persons professing no
religion, nonbelievers, agnostics, freethinkers,
dereligionized secularists indifferent to all
religion.
|
|
Total population. UN medium variant
figures for mid-1999, as given in World
Population Prospects: The 1998 Revision.
|
|