In 2020, around 28.8 percent of the global population were identified as Christian. Around 25.6 percent of the global population identify as Muslims, followed by 14.9 percent of global populations as Hindu. The number of Muslims increased by 347 million, when compared to 2010 data, more than all other religions combined.

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.

As of 2020, Christianity was the largest religion in the world, with around 2.5 billion believers. In the second place was Islam, with around 1.9 billion adherents.

The World Religion Project (WRP) aims to provide detailed information about religious adherence worldwide since 1945. It contains data about the number of adherents by religion in each of the states in the international system. These numbers are given for every half-decade period (1945, 1950, etc., through 2010). Percentages of the states' populations that practice a given religion are also provided. (Note: These percentages are expressed as decimals, ranging from 0 to 1, where 0 indicates that 0 percent of the population practices a given religion and 1 indicates that 100 percent of the population practices that religion.) Some of the religions are divided into religious families. To the extent data are available, the breakdown of adherents within a given religion into religious families is also provided.

The project was developed in three stages. The first stage consisted of the formation of a religion tree. A religion tree is a systematic classification of major religions and of religious families within those major religions. To develop the religion tree we prepared a comprehensive literature review, the aim of which was (i) to define a religion, (ii) to find tangible indicators of a given religion of religious families within a major religion, and (iii) to identify existing efforts at classifying world religions. (Please see the original survey instrument to view the structure of the religion tree.) The second stage consisted of the identification of major data sources of religious adherence and the collection of data from these sources according to the religion tree classification. This created a dataset that included multiple records for some states for a given point in time. It also contained multiple missing data for specific states, specific time periods and specific religions. The third stage consisted of cleaning the data, reconciling discrepancies of information from different sources and imputing data for the missing cases.

The National Religion Dataset: The observation in this dataset is a state-five-year unit. This dataset provides information regarding the number of adherents by religions, as well as the percentage of the state's population practicing a given religion.

At the end of 2023, the population of Israel reached almost 9.7 million permanent residents. Jewish residents formed the largest religious group, with just over 7.15 million people. The Muslim population in the country, formed the largest religious minority at over 1.7 million individuals. Conversely, the smallest religious group was that of the Druze with about 151,000 people.

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.

Christianity is the main religion in Sub-Saharan Africa. As of 2020, over *** million people in the region were Christian. Muslims followed, amounting to around *** million, while folk religions counted over ** million adherents. By 2050, the number of Christians in Sub-Saharan Africa is forecast to exceed *** billion, Muslims are forecast to be around *** million, and folk religions to account for about ** million adherents.

Catholicism was the main religion in Spain as of 2022, with a total of **** million adherents. Islam followed second, with *** followers. Catalonia was the autonomous community with the largest number of Muslims in Spain.

This dataset shows the Worker Population Ratio (WPR), in percentage terms, for major religions, based on usual status (ps+ss). For years before 2017-18, the data was obtained in different quinquennial rounds of NSSO conducted from 2004-05 (NSS 61st) to 2011-12 (NSS 68th round). From 2017-18 the data is sourced from the annual report of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) conducted by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. The data highlights the proportion of the working population within major religious communities.

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 2000 constitution of Cote d’Ivoire provides for religious freedom for all citizens. Approximately 40 percent of the population is Christian, another 40 percent is Muslim, and an estimated 25 percent of the population practice indigenous beliefs. Traditionally, the north has been associated with Islam and the south with Christianity. Throughout rural areas and central Cote d’Ivoire you will find people practicing indigenous beliefs. Many nominal Christian and Muslim practitioners practice a hybrid of Christian and indigenous or Muslim and indigenous beliefs. Nearly all Christians and Muslims belong to ethnic groups that believe in animism, fetishism, and witchcraft. Christian groups include Roman Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, Methodists, Assemblies of God, and Southern Baptists. The Evangelical Protestant Church of Cote d’Ivoire has over 1500 organized churches in its membership. The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro is a Roman Catholic basilica built in the late 1980s by then-President Felix Houphouet-Boigny. It is considered the largest church in the world. The USD 300 million price tag contributed to a significant portion to the total national debt of Cote d’Ivoire. Historically, Christian religions have been slightly favored by the government with the Catholic Church being the favorite. While Christian schools received subsidies from the Ministry of Education for decades, Muslim schools were only considered official schools and given similar subsidies beginning in 1994. Accusations of discrimination against Islamic and traditional religious communities concerned employment, national identity card renewals, and the aforementioned religious school subsidies. This resulted in government resentment from both indigenous and Muslim populations. A 1999 coup led political leaders to stir up religious divisions between the north and south. Alassane Ouattara, a Muslim northerner was banned from the 2000 election. This led to a 2002 troop mutiny and rebellion by discontent northern Muslims. Religious tensions escalated in 2010 with the presidential election results. Alassane Ouattara was elected president and incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo rejected the results and refused to step down. Ouattara is a northern Muslim, Gbagbo a southern Christian. The ensuing violence, destruction of property, and massive displacement of people divided Cote d’Ivoire into two regions, north and south. The underlying ethnic, religious, and national fragmentation of Cote d’Ivoire contributed greatly to this division. Only minor reports of discrimination based on religious affiliation, belief, or practice have occurred in 2012. ISO3 - International Organization for Standardization 3-digit country code ADM0_NAME - Administration level zero name NAME - Name of religious institution TYPE - Type of religious instituion CITY - City location of religious institution SPA_ACC - Spatial accuracy of site location 1- high, 2 – medium, 3 - low SOURCE_DT - Primary source creation date SOURCE - Primary source SOURCE2_DT - Secondary source creation date SOURCE2 - Secondary source

In 2021, the largest religion in England and Wales was Christianity, with approximately 27.52 million adherents. Although Christianity was the largest religion, the number of followers has declined when compared with ten years earlier, when there were almost 33.27 million Christians.

This map displays predominant religion by country and predominant religion family by region. Religion family categories shown include Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Other. Religion categories by country shown include Roman Catholic, Protestant, Sunni Islam, Shia Islam, Orthodox Christianity, Folk Religion, Christianity Other, Hindu, Shi’a Islam, Unaffiliated, Uninhabited, and Other. First- and second-largest religion and percent of the population practicing each are shown for each country.The main source of data comes from the Association of Religion Data Archives - https://www.thearda.com/.

In 2025, North Korea was the country with the strongest suppression of Christians with an index value of 98. Somalia followed behind with 94, with Yemen in third. The World Watch List The index ranges from 0 (complete freedom) to 100 (total suppression). The survey for the World Watch List included various aspects of religious freedom: the legal and official status of Christians, the actual situation of Christians living in the country, regulations from the state as well as factors that can undermine the freedom of religion in a country. Christianity worldwideEven though Christianity is the largest religion worldwide, there are many areas of the world where Christians are persecuted. As the list shows, this is especially the case in countries with larger Muslim populations. Moreover, these countries are characterized by their authoritarian nature. The global distribution of religions varies strongly; whereas almost 100 percent of Hindus and Buddhists are found in the Asia-Pacific, Christians are spread around most world regions except the Middle East and North Africa.

This dataset is the centerpiece of Pew Research Center's 2014 Religious Landscape Study, a nationally representative telephone survey conducted June 4-Sept. 30, 2014, among a sample of 35,071 U.S. adults. Approximately 60 percent of the interviews were conducted with respondents reached on cellphones (n=21,160) and 40 percent were completed on landlines (n=13,911). A minimum of 300 interviews were conducted in every state and the District of Columbia. Interviewing was conducted in English and Spanish. The survey is estimated to cover 97 percent of the non-institutionalized U.S. adult population; 3 percent of U.S. adults are not reachable by telephone or do not speak English or Spanish well enough to participate in the survey. No adjustments have been made to the data to attempt to account for the small amount of non-coverage.

The size of the national sample is unusually large for a religion survey. There are two main reasons for this. First, the large sample size makes it possible to estimate the religious composition of the U.S. with a high degree of precision. After taking into account the survey's design effect (based on the sample design and survey weights), the margin of error for the results based on the full sample is +/- 0.6 percentage points.

Second, the large sample size makes it possible to describe the characteristics of a wide variety of religious groups, including relatively small groups that cannot be analyzed using data from smaller surveys. With more than 35,000 respondents in total, the Religious Landscape Study includes interviews with roughly 350 in religious groups that account for just 1 percent of the U.S. population, and with 100 or more people in religious groups that are as small as three-tenths of 1 percent of the overall population. For instance, the study includes interviews with 245 Jehovah's Witnesses, a group that accounts for less than 1 percent of the U.S. population and is typically represented by only a few dozen respondents in smaller surveys.

From 2022 to 2060, the worldwide population of Muslims is expected to increase by 45.7 percent. For the same period, the global population of Buddhists is expected to decrease by 12.2 percent.

This map displays predominant religion by country and predominant religion family by region. Religion family categories shown include Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Other. Religion categories by country shown include Roman Catholic, Protestant, Sunni Islam, Shia Islam, Orthodox Christianity, Folk Religion, Christianity Other, Hindu, Shi’a Islam, Unaffiliated, Uninhabited, and Other. First- and second-largest religion and percent of the population practicing each are shown for each country.The main source of data comes from the Association of Religion Data Archives - http://www.thearda.com/Archive/Files/Descriptions/WRDNATL.asp.

This graph shows the largest Christian denominations in the United States in 2010, by number of adherents. In 2010, the Lattar-day Saints were among the largest Christian groups with about 6.3 million adherents in the United States.

Time-series dataset of the demographic characteristics of the UK ethnic minority populations and religious groups up to 2006, to study ethnic and religious demographic diversity and its impact upon future population size, age-structure and the ethnic and religious composition of the UK population. This dataset is compiled from various existing data sources: 2001 Census, Labour Force Survey (LFS) and International Passenger Survey (IPS) data. In the absence of vital statistics by ethnic groups, indirect methods were used to estimate vital rates, including the ‘Own Child’ method applied to LFS household data to derive fertility estimates of ethnic and religious groups. Building on previous work, fertility rates of ethnic groups were produced up to 2006, distinguishing between UK-born and foreign-born populations. Migration rates were based on ONS International Migration Statistics (using IPS data), LFS and census data and projected on various assumptions. The results served population projections to mid-century and beyond of the main ethnic minority populations, including mixed populations, and using cohort-component methods. Furthermore, estimates of fertility rates for the major religious (and non-religious) groups were produced.

Datasets include: (1) Calculated fertility estimates for all women aged 15 to 49 in the UK, by 5 years age group, by ethnic group, religion and place of birth (UK/non-UK), based on LFS data; (2) Data on mixed children by ethnic group of the mother; (3) Data on country of birth by ethnic group (all populations); (4) Data on immigration flow by country of origin.

This project aims to analyse ethnic and religious demographic diversity, to investigate the potential for convergence of trends over time and its impact upon future population size, age-structure and the ethnic and religious composition of the UK population.

Existing statistical sources (especially the 2001 Census, the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Longitudinal Survey) will be used to produce time-series of the demographic characteristics of the ethnic minority populations and religious groups up to 2006. In the absence of vital statistics by ethnic groups, the Own Child method applied to LFS and census data will be used to derive fertility estimates of ethnic and religious groups.

The results will serve population projections to mid-century and beyond of the main ethnic minority populations, including mixed populations, and using cohort-component methods. Migration rates will be based on ONS International Migration Statistics, LFS and census data and projected on various assumptions.

Furthermore, estimates of fertility rates and other demographic information for the major religious (and non-religious) groups will be produced with a view to making preliminary projections of their future size. The potential convergence of the demographic characteristics of ethnic and religious groups will be analysed, including mixed unions as an indicator for integration.

Spain has a long history of Islamic tradition under its belt. From cuisine to architecture, the southern European country has been linked to the North of Africa through many common elements. At the end of 2023, there were approximately 2.41 million Muslims in Spain, most of them of Spanish and Moroccan nationality, with upwards of eight hundred thousand believers in both cases. With a Muslim population of more than 660,000 people, Catalonia was home to the largest Muslim community in Spain as of the same date.

The not so Catholic Spain

Believers of a religion other than Catholicism accounted for approximately 3 percent of the Spanish population, according to the most recent data. Although traditionally a Catholic country, Spain saw a decline in the number of believers over the past years. Compared to previous years, when the share of believers accounted for slightly over 70 percent of the Spanish population, the Catholic community lost ground, while still being the major religion for the foreseable future.

A Catholic majority, a practicing minority

Going to mass is no longer a thing in Spain, or so it would seem when looking at the latest statistics about the matter: 50 percent of those who consider themselves Catholics almost never attend any religious service in 2024. The numbers increased until 2019, from 55.5 percent of the population never attending religious services in 2011 to 63.1 percent in 2019. The share of population that stated to be practicing believers and go to mass every Sunday and on the most important holidays accounted for only 15.5 percent.