Worldwide Adherents of All Religions by Six Continental Areas, Mid-2008

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Worldwide Adherents of All Religions by Six Continental Areas,

Mid–2008

Africa Asia Europe Latin America Northern America

Christians 465,880,000 364,106,000 583,802,000 536,162,000 277,089,000

Affiliated 439,561,000 359,186,000 559,099,000 530,146,000 221,643,000

  Roman Catholics 159,776,000 128,901,000 275,209,000 474,595,000 83,210,000

  Independents 92,928,000 179,166,000 21,104,000 42,381,000 74,085,000

  Protestants 130,376,000 61,598,000 67,829,000 56,214,000 61,119,000

  Orthodox 42,220,000 13,951,000 190,031,000 895,000 6,679,000

  Anglicans 47,655,000 838,000 26,241,000 875,000 2,867,000

  Marginal Christians 3,377,000 3,062,000 4,127,000 10,825,000 11,577,000

  Doubly affiliated −36,771,000 −28,330,000 −25,442,000 −55,639,000 −17,894,000

Unaffiliated 26,319,000 4,920,000 24,703,000 6,016,000 55,446,000

Muslims 392,636,100 992,850,000 40,749,000 1,830,000 5,556,000

Hindus 2,813,000 906,190,000 1,681,000 760,000 1,756,000

Nonreligious 6,012,000 619,845,000 82,658,000 16,958,000 39,847,000

Chinese universists 38,500 385,861,000 312,000 186,000 747,000

Buddhists 165,000 377,515,000 1,792,000 767,000 3,504,000

Ethnoreligionists 116,125,000 147,571,000 1,153,000 3,654,000 1,567,000

Atheists 614,000 126,914,000 15,676,000 2,839,000 1,852,000

Neoreligionists 126,000 104,208,000 393,000 819,000 1,633,000

Sikhs 65,100 22,592,000 475,000 6,500 647,000

Jews 130,000 5,750,000 1,850,000 1,046,000 6,212,000

Spiritists 3,500 0 143,000 13,348,000 168,000

Baha'is 2,229,000 3,786,000 142,000 910,000 660,000

Confucianists 300 6,346,000 18,300 500 0

Jains 86,600 5,378,000 18,000 0 95,700

Taoists 0 3,365,000 0 0 12,200

Shintoists 0 2,715,000 0 8,000 61,500

Zoroastrians 900 152,000 5,700 0 20,600

Other religionists 80,000 217,000 259,000 110,000 670,000

Total population 987,005,000 4,075,361,000 731,127,000 579,404,000 342,098,000

Oceania World % Change Rate (%) Number of Countries

Christians 27,496,000 2,254,535,000 33.4 1.23 240

Affiliated 23,068,000 2,132,703,000 31.6 1.27 240

  Roman Catholics 8,727,000 1,130,418,000 16.7 1.14 237

  Independents 1,478,000 411,142,000 6.1 1.88 223

  Protestants 8,185,000 385,321,000 5.7 1.48 234

  Orthodox 776,000 254,552,000 3.8 0.36 137

  Anglicans 5,046,000 83,522,000 1.2 1.63 165

  Marginal Christians 650,000 33,618,000 0.5 1.87 218

  Doubly affiliated −1,794,000 −165,870,000 −2.5 1.29 174

Unaffiliated 4,428,000 121,832,000 1.8 0.64 232

Muslims 460,000 1,434,081,100 21.2 1.80 211

Hindus 471,000 913,671,000 13.5 1.46 126

Nonreligious 4,294,000 769,614,000 11.4 0.30 239

Chinese universists 150,000 387,294,500 5.7 0.65 96

Buddhists 575,000 384,318,000 5.7 0.71 136

Ethnoreligionists 343,000 270,413,000 4.0 1.15 145

Atheists 427,000 148,322,000 2.2 0.05 221

Neoreligionists 90,100 107,269,100 1.6 0.70 107

Sikhs 49,700 23,835,300 0.4 1.52 44

Jews 108,000 15,096,000 0.2 0.98 135

Spiritists 7,400 13,669,900 0.2 1.11 56

Baha'is 141,000 7,868,000 0.1 1.92 219

Confucianists 53,300 6,418,400 0.1 0.22 15

Jains 800 5,579,100 0.1 1.43 13

Taoists 0 3,377,200 0.1 −0.04 5

Shintoists 0 2,784,500 0.0 0.52 8

Zoroastrians 1,700 180,900 0.0 −0.33 25

Other religionists 10,000 1,346,000 0.0 1.31 79

Total population 34,678,000 6,749,673,000 100.0 1.17 240

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 2006 Revision (New York: UN, 2007), with populations of all continents, regions, and countries covering the period 1950–2050, with 100 variables for every country each year. Note that "Asia" includes the former Soviet Central Asian states, and "Europe" includes all of Russia eastward to the Pacific.

Change Rate. This column documents the annual change in 2008 (calculated as an average annual change from 2005 to 2010) in worldwide religious and nonreligious adherents.

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 in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a person's religion is what he or she professes, confesses, or states that it is. Totals are enumerated for each of the world's 240 countries following the methodology of the World Christian Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. (2001), and World Christian Trends (2001), using recent censuses, polls, surveys, yearbooks, reports, Web sites, literature, and other data. See the World Christian Database (www.worldchristiandatabase.org) for more detail. Religions are ranked in order of worldwide size in mid–2008.

Christians. Followers of Jesus Christ, enumerated here under Affiliated Christians, those affiliated with churches (church members, with names written on church rolls, usually total number of baptized persons, including children baptized, dedicated, or undedicated): total in 2008 being 2,132,703,000, shown above divided among the six standardized ecclesiastical megablocs and with (negative and italicized) figures for those Doubly-affiliated persons (all who are baptized members of two denominations) and Unaffiliated Christians, who are persons professing or confessing in censuses or polls to be Christians though not so affiliated. Independents. This term here denotes members of Christian churches and networks that regard themselves as postdenominationalist and neoapostolic and thus independent of historic, mainstream, organized, institutionalized, confessional, denominationalist Christianity. Marginal Christians. Members of denominations who define themselves as Christians but on the margins of organized mainstream Christianity (e.g., Unitarians, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, and Religious Science).

Muslims. 84% Sunnites, 14% Shi bf;ites, 2% other schools.

Hindus. 68% Vaishnavites, 27% Shaivites, 2% neo-Hindus and reform Hindus.

Chinese universists. Followers of a unique complex of beliefs and practices that may include: universism (yin/yang cosmology with dualities earth/heaven, evil/good, darkness/light), ancestor cult, Confucian ethics, divination, festivals, folk religion, goddess worship, household gods, local deities, mediums, metaphysics, monasteries, neo-Confucianism, popular religion, sacrifices, shamans, spirit writing, and Taoist and Buddhist elements.

Buddhists. 56% Mahayana, 38% Theravada (Hinayana), 6% Tantrayana (Lamaism).

Ethnoreligionists. Followers of local, tribal, animistic, or shamanistic religions, with members restricted to one ethnic group.

Neoreligionists. Followers of Asian 20th-century neoreligions, neoreligious movements, radical new crisis religions, and non-Christian syncretistic mass religions.

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.

Confucianists. Non-Chinese followers of Confucius and Confucianism, mostly Koreans in Korea.

Other religionists. Including a handful of religions, quasi-religions, pseudoreligions, parareligions, religious or mystic systems, and religious and semireligious brotherhoods of numerous varieties.

Atheists. Persons professing atheism, skepticism, disbelief, or irreligion, including the militantly antireligious (opposed to all religion). In recent years, a flurry of books have outlined the Western philosophical and scientific basis for atheism. Ironically, the vast majority of atheists today are found in Asia (primarily Chinese communists).

Total population. UN medium variant figures for mid–2008, as given in World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision.

See as table:

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