During a survey conducted in 2023, approximately 54 percent of respondents in 17 Latin American countries claimed to be catholic. Meanwhile, 14.9 percent of the people participating in the survey said they did not profess any religion.In Mexico, more than 69 percent of respondents said they professed Catholicism. Particularly in Honduras, Colombia and Ecuador, most Christians think religion is very important in their lives.

Except for Uruguay, over 60 percent of the population in all the selected Latin American countries defined themselves as Catholics in 2000. However, by 2023, that was the case in only three countries: Mexico, Peru and Colombia. Over this 20-year period, Panama experienced the largest decrease in the share of Catholic believers, plummeting from 82.8 to 33.4 percent.

The average for 2013 based on 20 countries was 74.7 percent. The highest value was in Colombia: 94.1 percent and the lowest value was in Haiti: 44 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2013. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Guatemala was the most Christian country among those selected in the Latin America and Caribbean region, with 97.2 percent of its population following Christianity in 2020. The Baháʼí faith, which originates from the Middle East, and preaches the unity of all religions and all people, was present in both Bolivia and Panama. As for agnosticism, it had the most practitioners in Uruguay and Cuba.

Roman Catholic is the most common religious affiliation in Colombia. In a survey carried out in 2023, nearly 64 percent of Colombian respondents claimed to be of Catholic faith, whereas the second most chosen religion was Evangelism, with 15.7 percent of the people interviewed. More than 14 percent of respondents answered they had no religious affiliation. The advent of evangelicalism in Colombia and LAC The share of Catholics in Colombia is above the average in Latin America and the Caribbean, where about 53 percent of adults identify as followers of Catholicism. Nevertheless, even if Colombia stood out historically as one of the countries with the largest share of Catholics in the region, their numbers have been dwindling considerably in the past few decades: in the year 2000, 85.5 of Colombians identified as Catholics, over 15 percent points more than two decades later. Meanwhile, Evangelism keeps gaining ground in both the country and the region. While merely 3.4 percent of Colombians were evangelical in 1996, this share had grown almost five-fold by 2020, while atheists and agnostics passed from 4.5 to 10.3 in the same lapse of time. The whole of Latin America is experiencing a similar trend, with evangelists accounting for more than one fifth of the population in countries such as Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Brazil. The success of Evangelical Churches in Latin America is related, among other things, to the creation of social safety nets in poor communities, the rise of conservative political parties and movements, and more flexible standards for ordination.
Religiosity among young Colombians Interestingly, eastern religions such as Buddhism enjoy the same popularity as Evangelism and Protestantism among young Colombians. Religion seems to have a considerable impact on youngsters’ life. More than half of surveyed Colombians aged between 15 and 29 claimed that religious beliefs provided them with inner peace, while another 12.5 and 10 percent said that it helped them to quit drugs and gangs, respectively. Only 5.5 percent of the respondents affirmed that religious beliefs had no influence on their lives. As for the religiosity of young Catholic Colombians, very few claimed to be very observant. Around 45 percent considered themselves not very observant, while around a third classified as somewhat observant.

This statistic displays the percentage of adults who identified themselves as Catholic broken down by country in Latin America in 2014, based on the results of a survey conducted on Catholic affiliation in Latin America. In that year, more than 80 percent of Mexican respondents identified themselves as Catholic.

The level of trust in the church (including all churches) varied remarkably among Latin American countries. Paraguay and Honduras were the countries with the highest level of trust in the church, at 77 and 74 percent respectively. In Chile, where the sex abuse scandals uncovered in 2018 severely damaged the institution's reputation, trust level was merely at 31 percent, the second lowest in the region.

The crisis of the Roman Catholic church in the South American country of Chile has led to a dramatic fall in the level of trust that Chileans have in the institution. According to a survey, the level of trust dropped to 31 percent in 2020, down from 60 percent in 2005. The sex abuse scandals uncovered in 2018, together with the subsequent investigation of over a hundred clergymen and the mass resignation of the country's bishops, have severely damaged the church's reputation, turning it into the lowest in Latin America.

This statistic displays the percentage of adults who identified themselves as religiously unaffiliated broken down by country and type in Latin America in 2014, based on the results of a survey conducted on Catholic affiliation in Latin America. In that year, approximately 25 percent of Uruguayan respondents identified themselves with no particular religion and three percent identified themselves as agnostic.

Roman Catholic was the most common religion affiliation in Mexico in 2023. In a survey carried out that year, roughly 69.4 percent of Mexican respondents claimed to be of catholic faith. Mexico ranks among the Latin American countries with the highest share of Catholics. More than nine percent of respondents answered they didn't profess any religion.

According to a survey carried out in Argentina in 2019, over 65 percent of catholics and Argentinians with no religious affiliation interacted with God on their own. Meanwhile, around 55.3 percent of evangelists had their interaction through the church or temple. Overall, 59.9 percent of the total respondents in the South American country stated their main way to interact with God is on their own.

A survey carried out between August and September of 2019 showed that there was a 13.6 percentage points decrease on the affiliation of Argentinians to the Catholic faith in comparison to 2008. Meanwhile, the share of evangelists and Argentinians with no religious affiliation increased in this eleven-year period. Nevertheless, Roman Catholic was still the most predominant religion in all age groups in the South American country in 2019.

According to a 2022 survey, 31 percent of Americans never attend church or synagogue, compared to 20 percent of Americans who attend every week.

Religiosity in the United States

Despite only about a fifth of Americans attending church or synagogue on a weekly basis, almost 40 percent consider themselves to be very religious. Additionally, states in the Deep South such as Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana had the most residents identifying as very religious. In contrast, New England states like Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire had the most people identifying as nonreligious.

A Christian nation?

Despite the official separation of church and state embedded in the Constitution, many would still consider the United States to be a Christian nation. Catholicism has the largest number of adherents in the United States, due to there being many different Protestant denominations. The Southern Baptist Convention had the largest number of Evangelical adherents, while the United Methodist Church was the largest Mainline Protestant denomination.

According to a survey conducted in Brazil in 2022, Bolsonaro's government had its highest approval rate among evangelic believers, with 35 percent of them considering his government to be great or good. The share of Evangelists in the South American country has been experiencing a remarkable increase in the last decades, and is expected to nearly equate the share of Catholics by 2032.

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.

Young women in Mexico tend to attend religious services more often than young men. While 38.9 percent of young Mexican women go at least once a week, from time to time or whenever they can to religious services, men were more likely to attend special events (17.9 percent) or when there is a need (2.7 percent). The level of trust in the church in Mexico was among the lowest in Latin America.

This graph shows the number of religious congregations in the United States in 2010, by state. In 2010, 27,848 congregations were listed in Texas.

PerCapita_CO2_Footprint_InDioceses_FULLBurhans, Molly A., Cheney, David M., Gerlt, R.. . “PerCapita_CO2_Footprint_InDioceses_FULL”. Scale not given. Version 1.0. MO and CT, USA: GoodLands Inc., Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., 2019.MethodologyThis is the first global Carbon footprint of the Catholic population. We will continue to improve and develop these data with our research partners over the coming years. While it is helpful, it should also be viewed and used as a "beta" prototype that we and our research partners will build from and improve. The years of carbon data are (2010) and (2015 - SHOWN). The year of Catholic data is 2018. The year of population data is 2016. Care should be taken during future developments to harmonize the years used for catholic, population, and CO2 data.1. Zonal Statistics: Esri Population Data and Dioceses --> Population per dioceses, non Vatican based numbers2. Zonal Statistics: FFDAS and Dioceses and Population dataset --> Mean CO2 per Diocese3. Field Calculation: Population per Diocese and Mean CO2 per diocese --> CO2 per Capita4. Field Calculation: CO2 per Capita * Catholic Population --> Catholic Carbon FootprintAssumption: PerCapita CO2Deriving per-capita CO2 from mean CO2 in a geography assumes that people's footprint accounts for their personal lifestyle and involvement in local business and industries that are contribute CO2. Catholic CO2Assumes that Catholics and non-Catholic have similar CO2 footprints from their lifestyles.Derived from:A multiyear, global gridded fossil fuel CO2 emission data product: Evaluation and analysis of resultshttp://ffdas.rc.nau.edu/About.htmlRayner et al., JGR, 2010 - The is the first FFDAS paper describing the version 1.0 methods and results published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.Asefi et al., 2014 - This is the paper describing the methods and results of the FFDAS version 2.0 published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.Readme version 2.2 - A simple readme file to assist in using the 10 km x 10 km, hourly gridded Vulcan version 2.2 results.Liu et al., 2017 - A paper exploring the carbon cycle response to the 2015-2016 El Nino through the use of carbon cycle data assimilation with FFDAS as the boundary condition for FFCO2."S. Asefi‐Najafabady P. J. Rayner K. R. Gurney A. McRobert Y. Song K. Coltin J. Huang C. Elvidge K. BaughFirst published: 10 September 2014 https://doi.org/10.1002/2013JD021296 Cited by: 30Link to FFDAS data retrieval and visualization: http://hpcg.purdue.edu/FFDAS/index.phpAbstractHigh‐resolution, global quantification of fossil fuel CO2 emissions is emerging as a critical need in carbon cycle science and climate policy. We build upon a previously developed fossil fuel data assimilation system (FFDAS) for estimating global high‐resolution fossil fuel CO2 emissions. We have improved the underlying observationally based data sources, expanded the approach through treatment of separate emitting sectors including a new pointwise database of global power plants, and extended the results to cover a 1997 to 2010 time series at a spatial resolution of 0.1°. Long‐term trend analysis of the resulting global emissions shows subnational spatial structure in large active economies such as the United States, China, and India. These three countries, in particular, show different long‐term trends and exploration of the trends in nighttime lights, and population reveal a decoupling of population and emissions at the subnational level. Analysis of shorter‐term variations reveals the impact of the 2008–2009 global financial crisis with widespread negative emission anomalies across the U.S. and Europe. We have used a center of mass (CM) calculation as a compact metric to express the time evolution of spatial patterns in fossil fuel CO2 emissions. The global emission CM has moved toward the east and somewhat south between 1997 and 2010, driven by the increase in emissions in China and South Asia over this time period. Analysis at the level of individual countries reveals per capita CO2 emission migration in both Russia and India. The per capita emission CM holds potential as a way to succinctly analyze subnational shifts in carbon intensity over time. Uncertainties are generally lower than the previous version of FFDAS due mainly to an improved nightlight data set."Global Diocesan Boundaries:Burhans, M., Bell, J., Burhans, D., Carmichael, R., Cheney, D., Deaton, M., Emge, T. Gerlt, B., Grayson, J., Herries, J., Keegan, H., Skinner, A., Smith, M., Sousa, C., Trubetskoy, S. “Diocesean Boundaries of the Catholic Church” [Feature Layer]. Scale not given. Version 1.2. Redlands, CA, USA: GoodLands Inc., Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., 2016.Using: ArcGIS. 10.4. Version 10.0. Redlands, CA: Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., 2016.Boundary ProvenanceStatistics and Leadership DataCheney, D.M. “Catholic Hierarchy of the World” [Database]. Date Updated: August 2019. Catholic Hierarchy. Using: Paradox. Retrieved from Original Source.Catholic HierarchyAnnuario Pontificio per l’Anno .. Città del Vaticano :Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, Multiple Years.The data for these maps was extracted from the gold standard of Church data, the Annuario Pontificio, published yearly by the Vatican. The collection and data development of the Vatican Statistics Office are unknown. GoodLands is not responsible for errors within this data. We encourage people to document and report errant information to us at data@good-lands.org or directly to the Vatican.Additional information about regular changes in bishops and sees comes from a variety of public diocesan and news announcements.GoodLands’ polygon data layers, version 2.0 for global ecclesiastical boundaries of the Roman Catholic Church:Although care has been taken to ensure the accuracy, completeness and reliability of the information provided, due to this being the first developed dataset of global ecclesiastical boundaries curated from many sources it may have a higher margin of error than established geopolitical administrative boundary maps. Boundaries need to be verified with appropriate Ecclesiastical Leadership. The current information is subject to change without notice. No parties involved with the creation of this data are liable for indirect, special or incidental damage resulting from, arising out of or in connection with the use of the information. We referenced 1960 sources to build our global datasets of ecclesiastical jurisdictions. Often, they were isolated images of dioceses, historical documents and information about parishes that were cross checked. These sources can be viewed here:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11ANlH1S_aYJOyz4TtG0HHgz0OLxnOvXLHMt4FVOS85Q/edit#gid=0To learn more or contact us please visit: https://good-lands.org/Esri Gridded Population Data 2016DescriptionThis layer is a global estimate of human population for 2016. Esri created this estimate by modeling a footprint of where people live as a dasymetric settlement likelihood surface, and then assigned 2016 population estimates stored on polygons of the finest level of geography available onto the settlement surface. Where people live means where their homes are, as in where people sleep most of the time, and this is opposed to where they work. Another way to think of this estimate is a night-time estimate, as opposed to a day-time estimate.Knowledge of population distribution helps us understand how humans affect the natural world and how natural events such as storms and earthquakes, and other phenomena affect humans. This layer represents the footprint of where people live, and how many people live there.Dataset SummaryEach cell in this layer has an integer value with the estimated number of people likely to live in the geographic region represented by that cell. Esri additionally produced several additional layers World Population Estimate Confidence 2016: the confidence level (1-5) per cell for the probability of people being located and estimated correctly. World Population Density Estimate 2016: this layer is represented as population density in units of persons per square kilometer.World Settlement Score 2016: the dasymetric likelihood surface used to create this layer by apportioning population from census polygons to the settlement score raster.To use this layer in analysis, there are several properties or geoprocessing environment settings that should be used:Coordinate system: WGS_1984. This service and its underlying data are WGS_1984. We do this because projecting population count data actually will change the populations due to resampling and either collapsing or splitting cells to fit into another coordinate system. Cell Size: 0.0013474728 degrees (approximately 150-meters) at the equator. No Data: -1Bit Depth: 32-bit signedThis layer has query, identify, pixel, and export image functions enabled, and is restricted to a maximum analysis size of 30,000 x 30,000 pixels - an area about the size of Africa.Frye, C. et al., (2018). Using Classified and Unclassified Land Cover Data to Estimate the Footprint of Human Settlement. Data Science Journal. 17, p.20. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2018-020.What can you do with this layer?This layer is unsuitable for mapping or cartographic use, and thus it does not include a convenient legend. Instead, this layer is useful for analysis, particularly for estimating counts of people living within watersheds, coastal areas, and other areas that do not have standard boundaries. Esri recommends using the Zonal Statistics tool or the Zonal Statistics to Table tool where you provide input zones as either polygons, or raster data, and the tool will summarize the count of population within those zones. https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-living-atlas/data-management/2016-world-population-estimate-services-are-now-available/