Worldwide Adherents of All Religions by Six Continental Areas, Mid-1997

▪ Table

Worldwide Adherents of All Religions by Six Continental Areas, Mid-1997

 

  Africa Asia Europe Latin America Northern America Oceania World % Number of

countries

Christians 350,892,000 289,784,000 552,183,000 455,882,000 257,129,000 24,117,000 1,929,987,000 33.0 244

  Unaffiliated Christians 30,689,000 10,381,000 21,443,000 2,041,000 35,748,000 4,637,000 104,939,000 1.8 201

  Affiliated Christians 320,203,000 279,403,000 530,740,000 453,841,000 221,381,000 19,480,000 1,825,048,000 31.2 243

     Roman Catholics 117,990,000 111,215,000 286,902,000 442,657,000 73,880,000 7,710,000 1,040,354,000 17.8 240

     Protestants 87,190,000 44,654,000 85,924,000 41,829,000 95,063,000 6,253,000 360,913,000 6.2 237

     Orthodox 32,880,000 15,403,000 166,908,000 620,000 6,698,000 695,000 223,204,000 3.8 137

     Anglicans 20,551,000 641,000 24,338,000 874,000 3,145,000 5,236,000 54,785,000 0.9 167

     Other Christians 68,357,000 125,213,000 5,645,000 40,231,000 47,585,000 826,000 287,857,000 4.9 213

Non-Christians 407,502,000 3,248,670,000 176,986,000 36,047,000 44,589,000 4,958,000 3,918,752,000 67.0 244

  Atheists 423,000 117,789,000 24,038,000 2,612,000 1,385,000 368,000 146,615,000 2.5 163

  Baha'is 2,263,000 3,606,000 104,000 880,000 740,000 73,000 7,666,000 0.1 213

  Buddhists 136,000 348,559,000 1,478,000 645,000 2,132,000 191,000 353,141,000 6.0 123

  Chinese folk religionists 28,000 362,013,000 216,000 184,000 832,000 61,000 363,334,000 6.2   88

  Confucianists 0 6,078,000 10,000 0 0 24,000 6,112,000 0.1   14

  Ethnic religionists 90,365,000 138,469,000 1,220,000 1,060,000 331,000 249,000 231,694,000 4.0 141

  Hindus 2,378,000 740,633,000 1,520,000 776,000 1,129,000 361,000 746,797,000 12.8 109

  Jains 65,000 3,946,000 0 0 5,000 0 4,016,000 0.1   10

  Jews 290,000 4,497,000 2,932,000 1,173,000 5,904,000 94,000 14,890,000 0.3 137

  Mandeans 0 40,000 0 0 0 0 40,000 0.0     2

  Muslims 306,606,000 803,605,000 31,347,000 1,632,000 4,066,000 238,000 1,147,494,000 19.6 204

  New-Religionists 27,000 97,263,000 122,000 611,000 649,000 27,000 98,699,000 1.7   57

  Nonreligious 4,798,000 597,804,000 113,165,000 15,144,000 26,127,000 3,242,000 760,280,000 13.0 238

  Shintoists 0 2,611,000 0 7,000 54,000 0 2,672,000 0.0     8

  Sikhs 52,000 21,464,000 497,000 0 491,000 14,000 22,518,000 0.4   32

  Spiritists 3,000 2,000 78,000 11,229,000 148,000 7,000 11,467,000 0.2   54

  Zoroastrians 1,000 268,000 0 0 3,000 0 272,000 0.0   16

  Other religionists 67,000 23,000 259,000 94,000 593,000 9,000 1,045,000 0.0   78

Total population 758,394,000 3,538,454,000 729,169,000 491,929,000 301,718,000 29,075,000 5,848,739,000 100 244

Continents. These follow current UN demographic terminology. UN practice began in 1949 by dividing the world into 5 continents, then into 18 regions (1954), then into 8 major continental areas (called macro regions in 1987) and 24 regions (1963), then into 7 major areas and 22 regions (1988), and most recently into the 6 major areas shown above, and 21 regions (1994). See United Nations, World Population Prospects: The 1996 Revision (New York: UN, 1997), with populations of all continents, regions, and countries covering the period 1950-2025. The table above therefore combines its former columns "East Asia" and "South Asia" into one single continental area, "Asia," which also now includes the former Soviet Central Asian states. Note also that "Europe" now 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 following.

Adherents. As defined and enumerated for each of the world's countries in World Christian Encylcopedia (1982), projected to mid-1997, adjusted for recent data.

Christians. Followers of Jesus Christ affiliated with churches (church members, including children: 1,782,809,000) plus persons professing in censuses or polls to be Christians though not so affiliated. The four major ecclesiastical blocs are ranked by number of adherents at world level.

Other Christians. This term 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 the traditional Chinese religion (local deities, ancestor veneration, Confucian ethics, Taoism, universism, divination, some Buddhist elements).

Confucians. 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. Up to 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 are 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.

Nonreligious. Persons professing no religion, nonbelievers, agnostics, freethinkers, dereligionized secularists indifferent to all religion.

Other religionists. Including 70 minor world religions and over 5,000 national or local religions, and a large number of spiritist religions, New Age religions, quasi religions, pseudo religions, parareligions, religious or mystic systems, religious and semireligious brotherhoods of numerous varieties.

Total Population. UN medium variant figures for mid-1997, as given in World Population Prospects: The 1996 Revision (New York: UN, 1997).

See as table:

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