In 2022, around 31.6 percent of the global population were identify as Christian. Around 25.8 percent of the global population identify as Muslims, followed by 15.1 percent of global populations as Hindu.

Christianity is the major religion in numerous African countries. As of 2024, around 96 percent of the population of Zambia was Christian, representing the highest percentage on the continent. Seychelles and Rwanda followed with roughly 95 percent and 94 percent of the population being Christian, respectively. While these countries present the highest percentages, Christianity was also prevalent in many other African nations. For instance, in South Africa, Christianity was the religion of nearly 85 percent of the people, while the share corresponded to 71 percent in Ghana. Religious variations across Africa Christianity and Islam are the most practiced religions in Africa. Christian adherents are prevalent below the Sahara, while North Africa is predominantly Muslim. In 2020, Christians accounted for around 60 percent of the Sub-Saharan African population, followed by Muslims with a share of roughly 30 percent. In absolute terms, there were approximately 650 million Christians in the region, a number forecast to increase to over one billion by 2050. In contrast, Islam is most prevalent in North Africa, being the religion of over 90 percent of the population in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya. Christianity in the world As opposed to other religions, Christianity is widely spread across continents worldwide. In fact, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe each account for around 25 percent of the global Christian population. By comparison, Asia-Pacific and North America make up 13 percent and 12 percent of Christians worldwide, respectively. In several regions, Christians also suffer persecution on religious grounds. Somalia and Libya presented the most critical situation in Africa in 2021, reporting the strongest suppression of Christians worldwide just after North Korea and Afghanistan.

As of 2010, Christianity was the religion with the most followers worldwide, followed by Islam (Muslims) and Hinduism. In the forty years between 2010 and 2050, it is projected that the landscape of world religions will undergo some noticeable changes, with the number of Muslims almost catching up to Christians. The changes in population sizes of each religious group is largely dependent on demographic development, for example, the rise in the world's Christian population will largely be driven by population growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, while Muslim populations will rise across various regions of Africa and South Asia. As India's population is set to grow while China's goes into decline, this will be reflected in the fact that Hindus will outnumber the unaffiliated by 2050. In fact, India may be home to both the largest Hindu and Muslim populations in the world by the middle of this century.

In 2023, **** percent of Americans were unaffiliated with any religion. A further **** percent of Americans were White evangelical Protestants, and an additional **** percent were White mainline Protestants. Religious trends in the United States Although the United States is still home to the largest number of Christians worldwide, the nation has started to reflect a more diverse religious landscape in recent years. Americans now report a wide range of religious beliefs and backgrounds, in addition to an increasing number of people who are choosing to identify with no religion at all. Studies suggest that many Americans have left their previous religion to instead identify as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular, with many reasoning that they stopped believing in the religion's teachings, that they didn't approve of negative teachings or treatment of LGBTQ+ people, or that their family was never that religious growing up. Christian controversies Over the last few years, controversies linked to Christian denominations have plagued the nation, including reports of child sexual abuse by the Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the Southern Baptist Convention. Christian churches have also been accused of supporting discriminatory actions against LGBTQ+ people and people belonging to other religious groups. In addition, there have been increasing concerns about Christian nationalism, the political ideology that asserts that America was founded to be a Christian nation. Although the majority of Americans still think that declaring the United States a Christian nation would go against the U.S. Constitution, studies found that most Republicans would be in favor of this change.

Between Oct. 14, 2014, and May 21, 2015, Pew Research Center, with generous funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Neubauer Family Foundation, completed 5,601 face-to-face interviews with non-institutionalized adults ages 18 and older living in Israel.

The survey sampling plan was based on six districts defined in the 2008 Israeli census. In addition, Jewish residents of West Bank (Judea and Samaria) were included.

The sample includes interviews with 3,789 respondents defined as Jews, 871 Muslims, 468 Christians and 439 Druze. An additional 34 respondents belong to other religions or are religiously unaffiliated. Five groups were oversampled as part of the survey design: Jews living in the West Bank, Haredim, Christian Arabs, Arabs living in East Jerusalem and Druze.

Interviews were conducted under the direction of Public Opinion and Marketing Research of Israel (PORI). Surveys were administered through face-to-face, paper and pencil interviews conducted at the respondent's place of residence. Sampling was conducted through a multi-stage stratified area probability sampling design based on national population data available through the Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics' 2008 census.

The questionnaire was designed by Pew Research Center staff in consultation with subject matter experts and advisers to the project. The questionnaire was translated into Hebrew, Russian and Arabic, independently verified by professional linguists conversant in regional dialects and pretested prior to fieldwork.

The questionnaire was divided into four sections. All respondents who took the survey in Russian or Hebrew were branched into the Jewish questionnaire (Questionnaire A). Arabic-speaking respondents were branched into the Muslim (Questionnaire B), Christian (Questionnaire C) or Druze questionnaire (D) based on their response to the religious identification question. For the full question wording and exact order of questions, please see the questionnaire.

Note that not all respondents who took the questionnaire in Hebrew or Russian are classified as Jews in this study. For further details on how respondents were classified as Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze in the study, please see sidebar in the report titled "http://www.pewforum.org/2016/03/08/israels-religiously-divided-society/" Target="_blank">"How Religious are Defined".

Following fieldwork, survey performance was assessed by comparing the results for key demographic variables with population statistics available through the census. Data were weighted to account for different probabilities of selection among respondents. Where appropriate, data also were weighted through an iterative procedure to more closely align the samples with official population figures for gender, age and education. The reported margins of sampling error and the statistical tests of significance used in the analysis take into account the design effects due to weighting and sample design.

In addition to sampling error and other practical difficulties, one should bear in mind that question wording also can have an impact on the findings of opinion polls.

Islam is the major religion in many African countries, especially in the north of the continent. In Comoros, Libya, Western Sahara, at least 99 percent of the population was Muslim as of 202. These were the highest percentages on the continent. However, also in many other African nations, the majority of the population was Muslim. In Egypt, for instance, Islam was the religion of 79 percent of the people. Islam and other religions in Africa Africa accounts for an important share of the world’s Muslim population. As of 2019, 16 percent of the Muslims worldwide lived in Sub-Saharan Africa, while 20 percent of them lived in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Together with Christianity, Islam is the most common religious affiliation in Africa, followed by several traditional African religions. Although to a smaller extent, numerous other religions are practiced on the continent: these include Judaism, the Baha’i Faith, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Number of Muslims worldwide Islam is one of the most widespread religions in the world. There are approximately 1.9 billion Muslims globally, with the largest Muslim communities living in the Asia-Pacific region. Specifically, Indonesia hosts the highest number of Muslims worldwide, amounting to over 200 million, followed by India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Islam is also present in Europe and America. The largest Islamic communities in Europe are in France (5.72 million), Germany (4.95 million), and the United Kingdom (4.13 million). In the United States, there is an estimated number of around 3.45 million Muslims.

The eighteenth of 20 years of International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) surveys in New Zealand by Professor Philip Gendall, Department of Marketing, Massey University.A verbose rundown on topics covered follows.Content: attitudes towards religious practices. Assessment of personal happiness; attitudes towards pre-marital sexual intercourse; attitudes towards committed adultery; attitudes towards homosexual relationships between adults; attitudes towards abortion in case of serious disability or illness of the baby or low income of the family; attitudes towards gender roles in marriage.Trust in institutions (parliament, business and industry, churches and religious organisations, courts and the legal system, schools and the educational system); mobility; attitudes towards the influence of religious leaders on voters and government; attitudes towards the benefits of science and religion (scale: modern science does more harm than good, too much trust in science and not enough in religious faith, religions bring more conflicts than peace, intolerance of people with very strong religious beliefs).Judgement on the power of churches and religious organisations; attitudes towards equal rights for all religious groups in the country and respect for all religions; acceptance of persons from a different religion or with different religious views in case of marrying a relative or being a candidate of the preferred political party (social distance); attitudes towards the allowance for religious extremists to hold public meetings and to publish books expressing their views (freedom of expression).Doubt or firm belief in God (deism, scale); belief in: a life after death, heaven, hell, religious miracles, reincarnation, Nirvana, supernatural powers of deceased ancestors; attitudes towards a higher truth and towards meaning of life (scale: God is concerned with every human being personally, little that people can do to change the course of their lives (fatalism), life is meaningful only because God exists, life does not serve any purpose, life is only meaningful if someone provides the meaning himself, connection with God without churches or religious services).Religious preference (affiliation) of mother, father and spouse/ partner; religion respondent was raised in; frequency of church attendance (of attendance in religious services) of father and mother; personal frequency of church attendance when young; frequency of prayers and participation in religious activities; shrine, altar or a religious object in respondent’s home; frequency of visiting a holy place (shrine, temple, church or mosque) for religious reasons except regular religious services; self-classification of personal religiousness and spirituality; truth in one or in all religions; attitudes towards the profits of practicing a religion (scale: finding inner peace and happiness, making friends, gaining comfort in times of trouble and sorrow, meeting the right kind of people).Optional items (not stated in all countries): questions in countries with an appreciable number of Evangelical Protestants): ‘born-again’ Christian; attitudes towards the Bible (or appropriate holy book); questions generally applicable for all countries: conversion of faith after crucial experience; personal sacrifice as an expression of faith such as fasting or following a special diet during holy season such as Lent or Ramadan; concept of God (semantic differential scale: mother – father, master – spouse, judge – lover, friend – king); belief in lucky charms, fortune tellers, faith healers and horoscopes; social rules or God’s laws as basis for deciding between right and wrong; attitudes towards members of different religious groups (Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Atheists or non-believers.Demography: sex; age; marital status; steady life partner; years of schooling; highest education level; country specific education and degree; current employment status (respondent and partner); hours worked weekly; occupation (ISCO 1988) (respondent and partner); supervising function at work; working for private or public sector or self-employed (respondent and partner); if self-employed: number of employees; trade union membership; earnings of respondent (country specific); family income (country specific); size of household; household composition; party affiliation (left-right); country specific party affiliation; participation in last election; religious denomination; religious main groups; attendance of religious services; self-placement on a top-bottom scale; region (country specific); size of community (country specific); type of community: urban-rural area; country of origin or ethnic group affiliation.

All reports are written in English, though some reports feature Arabic text or cite Arabic sources.Team including job titles:Sparks, MA M.R. (Center for Intercultural Dialogue and Translation (CIDT))Birk, A.S. (Intern-Center for Arab West Understanding (CAWU))Anwar, Dr. S. (Intern-Center for Arab West Understanding (CAWU))Gabra Ayoub Khalil, S. (Centre for Arab-West Understanding (CAWU))Koehler, K. (Intern-Center for Arab West Understanding (CAWU))Fastenrath, C. (Intern-Center for Arab-West Understanding (CAWU))Levine, Dr. L.F.Muhammad al-Duwīnī, W. (Intern-Center for Arab-West Understanding (CAWU))Rezzonico, M. (Intern-Center for Arab-West Understanding (CAWU))Akselbo Holm, M. (Intern-Center for Arab-West Understanding (CAWU))Richards-Benson, S. (Center for Intercultural Dialogue and Translation (CIDT))

Islam and Christianity form the two dominant religions in Nigeria. Since colonialism, approximately 90 percent of the Nigerian people identify themselves as Islamic or Christian. The northern region of Nigeria is predominately Islamic, while the southern region is predominately Christian.

Nigeria’s contact with Islam predated that of Christianity and European colonialism; its spread was facilitated into Sub-Saharan Africa through trade and commerce. The northern part of Nigeria is symbolic to the history of Islam, as it penetrated the area through the Kanem-Borno Empire in the 11th century before spreading to other predominately Hausa states. Islam was then introduced into the traditional societies of the Yoruba-speaking people of south-west Nigeria through their established commercial relationship with people of the north, particularly the Nupe and Fulani.

Christianity reached Nigeria in the 15th century with the visitation of Catholic missionaries to the coastal areas of the Niger-Delta region. Christianity soon recorded a boost in the southern region given its opposition to the slave trade and its promotion of Western education.

The distinct religious divide has instigated violence in present-day Nigeria, including the Sharia riot in Kaduna in 2000, ongoing ethno-religious violence in Jos since 2001, and the 2011 post-election violence that erupted in some northern states, particularly in the city of Maiduguri. Nigerians’ continued loyalty to religion compared to that of the country continues to sustain major political debate, conflict, and violent outbreaks between populations of the two faiths.

ISO3-International Organization for Standardization 3-digit country code

NAME-Name of religious institution

TYPE-Type of religious institution

CITY-City religious institution is located in

SPA_ACC-Spatial accuracy of site location 1- high, 2 – medium, 3 - low

SOURCE_DT-Source creation date

SOURCE-Primary source

SOURCE2_DT-Secondary source creation date

SOURCE2-Secondary source

Collection

This HGIS was created using information collected from the web sites GCatholic.org, Islamic Finder, Wikimapia, and BBBike.org, which uses OpenStreetMap, a crowd-source collaboration project that geo-locates sites throughout the world. After collection, all education institutions were geo-located.

The data included herein have not been derived from a registered survey and should be considered approximate unless otherwise defined. While rigorous steps have been taken to ensure the quality of each dataset, DigitalGlobe Analytics is not responsible for the accuracy and completeness of data compiled from outside sources.

Sources (HGIS)

BBBike, "Nigeria." Last modified 2013. Accessed March 19, 2013. http://extract.bbbike.org.

GCatholic.org, "Catholic Churches in Federal Republic of Nigeria." Last modified 2013. Accessed April 4, 2013. http://www.gcatholic.org/.

Islamic Finder, "Nigeria." Last modified 2013. Accessed April 4, 2013. http://islamicfinder.org/.

Olanrewaju, Timothy. The Sun, "oko Haram attacks church in Maiduguri." Last modified 2013. Accessed April 9, 2013. http://sunnewsonline.com/.

Wikimapia, "Nigeria:Mosques/Churches." Last modified 2013. Accessed April 4, 2013. http://wikimapia.org/

World Watch Monitor, "Muslim Threat to Attack Church Raises Tensions." Last modified 2012. Accessed April 9, 2013. http://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/.

Sources (Metadata)

Danjibo, N.D. "Islamic Fundamentalism and Sectarian Violence: The "Maitatsine" and "Boko Haram" Crises in Northern Nigeria." manuscript., University of Ibadan, 2010. http://www.ifra-nigeria.org.

Olanrewaju, Timothy. The Sun, "oko Haram attacks church in Maiduguri." Last modified 2013. Accessed April 9, 2013. http://sunnewsonline.com/.

Onapajo, Hakeem. "Politics for God: Religion, Politics, and Conflict in Democratic Nigeria." Journal of Pan African Studies. 4. no. 9 (2012): 42-66. http://web.ebscohost.com (accessed March 26, 2013).

World Watch Monitor, "Muslim Threat to Attack Church Raises Tensions." Last modified 2012. Accessed April 9, 2013. http://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/.

Mali is a predominantly Muslim country with 94.84 percent of the population belonging to Islam. Of that 94.84 percent, only 0.8 percent is Shi’a versus the greater majority of Sunni Muslims in the country. While most of the population is Muslim, a small minority practice other religions as well; 2.37 percent Christianity, 2.02 percent Animist, 0.04 percent Other, 0.45 percent Atheist/Agnostic, and 0.28 percent Undeclared. Of the 2.37 percent of Christians in Mali, the majority of those are Roman Catholic. The Catholic Church has six dioceses that make up less than two percent of Mali’s population. Mali is typically defined as a secular state, with a constitution and code of laws that protect the public’s right for religious freedom and practice.

While the Malian government is officially secular, it frequently consults the moderate High Council of Islam (HCIM) and the Committee of Wise Men on controversial social issues of national scope. The HCIM is an umbrella organization with representatives from all significant Muslim organizations in-country as well as over 160 non-governmental organizations. The Committee of Wise Men includes the Catholic Archbishop and prominent Malian Protestant and Muslim leaders. In an effort to enshrine its commitment to multi-faith democracy, the Malian government has declared a diverse set of religious holidays as national holidays, including Mawloud, the Prophet’s Baptism, Easter Monday, Eid al- Fitf, Tabaski, and Christmas.

Religion is not taught in any public school in Mali. There are some private schools and madrasas that do offer both Christian and Islamic teachings in addition to the state-mandated secular curriculum. In Mali, most madrasas are located in the south in areas such as Sikasso (600), Segou (428), and Bamako (268). In the northern regions of Mali there are a little over 300 madrasas.

In recent months, a loose coalition of militant Tuareg and Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Ansar Dine, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), and the Azawad National Liberation Movement (MNLA), has taken over northern Mali with the goal of forming an Islamic state in the Trans-Sahara region. Areas under militant control have seen the imposition of strict Sharia law, including bans on music and severe restrictions on women and practitioners of non-Islamic faiths. In Timbuktu and other northern urban centers, different Islamic groups have destroyed numerous ancient Sufi mosques, tombs, and other artifacts in an effort to purge the region of “heretical” faiths.

This study, designed and carried out by the "http://www.asarb.org/" Target="_blank">Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB), compiled data on 372 religious bodies by county in the United States. Of these, the ASARB was able to gather data on congregations and adherents for 217 religious bodies and on congregations only for 155. Participating bodies included 354 Christian denominations, associations, or communions (including Latter-day Saints, Messianic Jews, and Unitarian/Universalist groups); counts of Jain, Shinto, Sikh, Tao, Zoroastrian, American Ethical Union, and National Spiritualist Association congregations, and counts of congregations and adherents from Baha'i, three Buddhist groupings, two Hindu groupings, and four Jewish groupings, and Muslims. The 372 groups reported a total of 356,642 congregations with 161,224,088 adherents, comprising 48.6 percent of the total U.S. population of 331,449,281. Membership totals were estimated for some religious groups.

In January 2024, the ARDA added 21 religious tradition (RELTRAD) variables to this dataset. These variables start at variable #9 (TOTCNG_2020). Categories were assigned based on pages 88-94 in the original "https://www.usreligioncensus.org/index.php/node/1638" Target="_blank">2020 U.S. Religion Census Report.

Visit the "https://www.thearda.com/us-religion/sources-for-religious-congregations-membership-data" Target="_blank">frequently asked questions page for more information about the ARDA's religious congregation and membership data sources.

Replication data set (STATA format) and R code to reproduce analyses and figures in the paper. Abstract: What citizens think about Muslim immigrants is of great importance for some of the most pressing challenges facing Western democracies. To advance our understanding of what “Islamophobia” really is – i.e. whether it is a dislike based on immigrants` ethnic background, their religious identity or their specific religious behaviour – we fielded a representative online survey experiment in the UK in the summer 2015. Our results suggest that Muslims are not per se viewed more negatively than Christian immigrants. Instead, we provide evidence that citizens’ uneasiness with Muslim immigration is first and foremost the result of a rejection of fundamentalist forms of religiosity. This suggests that com-mon explanations, which are based on simple dichotomies between liberal supporters and conservative critics of immigration need to be re-evaluated. While the politically left and culturally liberal have more positive attitudes towards immigrants than right leaning and conservatives, they are also far more critical towards religious groups. We conclude that a large part of the current political controver-sy over Muslim immigration has to do with this double opposition. Importantly, the current political conflict over Muslim immigration is not so much about immigrants versus natives or even Muslim versus Christians as it is about political liberalism versus religious fundamentalism.

Iberia c. 1030 to 1150 was characterized by decentralized political organization. Many small Muslim and Christian kingdoms established courtly and religious institutions and engaged in alliances and conflicts within and across religious lines. Muslim ?a’ifa (“party” or “small state”) kings sponsored scholarship, poetry, and other arts. Christian monks and clerics, under the institutional patronage of royals and elites, composed (and sometimes illuminated) historical chronicles, poetry, and religious texts. Texts produced in both of these settings – certain ?a’ifa courts and Christian monasteries – are the subjects of this dissertation. This period of Iberian history has received less attention from historians than most others; it is often dismissed as a transitional and chaotic time, and scholars who do recognize its cultural vibrance generally argue that such vibrance existed in spite of political circumstances, not because of them. There is also a lack of scholarly attention to the thematic relationships between work from the Arabic and Latin traditions. This dissertation studies primarily the Arabic and Latin historical texts from this period together from the perspective that political and cultural matters are inseparable. It argues that Iberia’s situation of political polycentrism fostered substantial patronage of scholarship and other creative activity. With many centers for administration and culture scattered across the peninsula that were often in competition with one another, rather than one lone capital, Iberian scholars and artists had access to ample support for their work from political leaders and institutions invested in demonstrating their legitimacy, wealth, righteousness, and taste by means of patronage. The historical writing that came out of these scattered centers reveals shared interest in many of the same peninsular entities, events, and dynamics and shared preference for familiar, though often imbalanced, peninsular relationships over engagement with extra-peninsular groups, especially the Almoravids (a north African empire that entered Iberia in the late eleventh century). Shared methods of rhetorical engagement with religious principles underscore further these writers’ participation in an identifiable, coherent period of scholarly culture. The following study is a starting point for an intellectual history of patronage and of the contents of materials that came out of patronage relationships.

This graphic shows the forecasted number of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, religiously unaffiliated people, believers in folk religions and in other religions in France in 2022. With almost ** million people identifying themselves as Christians, Christianity was the most represented religion in France. Furthermore, about **** million people considered themselves religiously unaffiliated.

Census 2021 data on religion by highest qualification level, by sex, by age, England and Wales combined. This dataset provides Census 2021 estimates that classify usual residents in England and Wales by ethnic group. The estimates are as at Census Day, 21 March 2021.

The religion people connect or identify with (their religious affiliation), whether or not they practise or have belief in it.
This question was voluntary and the variable includes people who answered the question, including “No religion”, alongside those who chose not to answer this question.

Total counts for some population groups may not match between published tables. This is to protect the confidentiality of individuals' data. Population counts have been rounded to the nearest 5 and any counts below 10 are suppressed, this is signified by a 'c' in the data tables.

This dataset shows population counts for usual residents aged 16 years and over. Some people aged 16 years old will not have completed key stage 4 yet on census day, and so did not have the opportunity to record any qualifications on the census.

These estimates are not comparable to Department of Education figures on highest level of attainment because they include qualifications obtained outside England and Wales.

Quality notes can be found here

Quality information about Education can be found here

Religion

The 8 ‘tickbox’ religious groups are as follows:

• Buddhist
• Christian
• Hindu
• Jewish
• Muslim
• No religion
• Sikh
• Other religion

No qualifications

No qualifications

Level 1

Level 1 and entry level qualifications: 1 to 4 GCSEs grade A* to C , Any GCSEs at other grades, O levels or CSEs (any grades), 1 AS level, NVQ level 1, Foundation GNVQ, Basic or Essential Skills

Level 2

5 or more GCSEs (A* to C or 9 to 4), O levels (passes), CSEs (grade 1), School Certification, 1 A level, 2 to 3 AS levels, VCEs, Intermediate or Higher Diploma, Welsh Baccalaureate Intermediate Diploma, NVQ level 2, Intermediate GNVQ, City and Guilds Craft, BTEC First or General Diploma, RSA Diploma

Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship

Level 3

2 or more A levels or VCEs, 4 or more AS levels, Higher School Certificate, Progression or Advanced Diploma, Welsh Baccalaureate Advance Diploma, NVQ level 3; Advanced GNVQ, City and Guilds Advanced Craft, ONC, OND, BTEC National, RSA Advanced Diploma

Level 4 +

Degree (BA, BSc), higher degree (MA, PhD, PGCE), NVQ level 4 to 5, HNC, HND, RSA Higher Diploma, BTEC Higher level, professional qualifications (for example, teaching, nursing, accountancy)

Other

Vocational or work-related qualifications, other qualifications achieved in England or Wales, qualifications achieved outside England or Wales (equivalent not stated or unknown)

This dataset describes the world’s religious makeup in 2020 and 2010. We focus on seven categories: Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, people who belong to other religions, and those who are religiously unaffiliated. This analysis is based on more than 2,700 sources of data, including national censuses, large-scale demographic surveys, general population surveys and population registers. For more information about this data, see the associated Pew Research Center report "How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020."

Roughly 85 percent of Guinea’s population is Muslim, primarily of the Sunni school. Muslims constitute a majority in all four geographic regions. Christians, mostly Roman Catholic, comprise an 8 percent minority and are situated primarily in Conakry and eastern parts of the Forest Region.Other Christian denominations include Anglicans, Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, and various evangelical subgroups. Approximately 7 percent of inhabitants, located principally in the Forest Region, adhere exclusively to indigenous religious beliefs. Islam was introduced in Guinea in the 17th century in what is now the country’s northeast. Starting in the late 1720s, the Fulani ethnic group established a theocratic Muslim state in the mountainous Fouta Djallon region. The Fulani created an ethnoreligious social hierarchy which relegated non-Muslims to the lowest rungs of the social ladder. Though the state was ultimately assimilated into Guinea-proper, the Fulani have remained the country’s most ardent Muslim population, ahead of the Mandinka subgroup of the Mandé people. The non-Muslim Soso people were gradually pushed out of the Fouta Djallon due to Fulani oppression. The majority migrated to coastal parts of Lower Guinea between the 17th and 20thcenturies; an area comprised of the prefectures Boke, Boffa, Conakry, Coyah, Dubreka, Fria, Forecariah, Kindia, and Telimele. Roman Catholic missionaries made inroads into Soso communities following their (the Soso’s) establishment of trade ties with Europe. Many Guinean children, particularly in the Fouta Djallon region attend Islamic schools, which combine the government’s secular curriculum with Quranic studies. More devout Muslims student may enroll at a madrassah, or mosque school, which typically forego French for Arabic as the language of instruction, and adhere exclusively to a religious studies curriculum. Though Guinea’s constitution guarantees religious freedom, Islam enjoys demographic, social, and cultural dominance. In the past some Guineans have claimed the government favors Muslims in its policies, citing the cancellation of classes at publicly funded universities in accommodation of Friday prayers. Despite these and other reports of social discrimination against non-Muslims, religious freedoms are generally respected in the country.

This study, designed and carried out by the "http://www.asarb.org/" Target="_blank">Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB), compiled data on 372 religious bodies by county in the United States. Of these, the ASARB was able to gather data on congregations and adherents for 217 religious bodies and on congregations only for 155. Participating bodies included 354 Christian denominations, associations, or communions (including Latter-day Saints, Messianic Jews, and Unitarian/Universalist groups); counts of Jain, Shinto, Sikh, Tao, Zoroastrian, American Ethical Union, and National Spiritualist Association congregations, and counts of congregations and adherents from Baha'i, three Buddhist groupings, two Hindu groupings, and four Jewish groupings, and Muslims. The 372 groups reported a total of 356,642 congregations with 161,224,088 adherents, comprising 48.6 percent of the total U.S. population of 331,449,281. Membership totals were estimated for some religious groups.

In January 2024, the ARDA added 21 religious tradition (RELTRAD) variables to this dataset. These variables start at variable #8 (TOTCNG_2020). Categories were assigned based on pages 88-94 in the original "https://www.usreligioncensus.org/index.php/node/1638" Target="_blank">2020 U.S. Religion Census Report.

Visit the "https://www.thearda.com/us-religion/sources-for-religious-congregations-membership-data" Target="_blank">frequently asked questions page for more information about the ARDA's religious congregation and membership data sources.

Historically, Portugal has been a country of Catholics. The 2021 census demonstrated that this trend has not been inverted, as over 80 percent of the population in Portugal identified as Catholic. Protestant or Evangelic believers accounted for more than two percent of the population, while Jehovah's Witnesses constituted one percent of residents. Among non-Christian faiths, Muslims were the most representative group, making up 0.42 percent of the population.

Religious but generally not practicing the faith

In the same year, Catholics numbered more than seven million people spread throughout the country, conquering the religious majority in the mainland and in the two autonomous regions. Citizens without religion totaled more than 1.2 million, which made of them the second most numerous religious group in Portugal. Young people presented the same religious trend, with young Catholics being the most representative group, followed by non-religious. Among youngsters, the attendance of religious events was mostly conducted occasionally, while a quarter did not participate in such proceedings at all.

The contribute of immigration to the growth of Evangelical Christianity

Despite being the minority, non-Catholic Christian and non-Christian faiths have been growing in Portugal. In 2011, Evangelical believers totaled 75.6 thousand, more than doubling ten years after. Such growth was partially motivated by the increase in Brazilian immigration, as more than 61 percent of new members of Evangelical churches in 2023 were of Brazilian origin. In fact, Brazil was the place of origin of almost 82 percent of all the immigrant Evangelical Christians residing in Portugal. However, more than a quarter of new Evangelical Christians were Portuguese, which shows that other religions, namely Christian Catholicism, have been losing members to Evangelical Catholicism.

Data on religion by gender and age for the population in private households in Canada, provinces and territories.