PEW Forum on Religion and Public Life
December 18, 2012
Executive Summary
Navigate this page:- Geographic Distribution
- Living as Majorities and Minorities
- Young and Old
- About the Study
- Defining the Religious Groups
- Roadmap to the Report
Worldwide, more than eight-in-ten people identify with a religious group. A comprehensive
demographic study of more than 230 countries and territories conducted by the Pew Research
Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life estimates that there are 5.8 billion religiously
affiliated adults and children around the globe, representing 84% of the 2010 world population
of 6.9 billion.
The demographic study – based on analysis
of more than 2,500 censuses, surveys and
population registers – finds 2.2 billion
Christians (32% of the world’s population),
1.6 billion Muslims (23%), 1 billion Hindus
(15%), nearly 500 million Buddhists (7%) and
14 million Jews (0.2%) around the world as
of 2010. In addition, more than 400 million
people (6%) practice various folk or traditional
religions, including African traditional
religions, Chinese folk religions, Native
American religions and Australian aboriginal
religions. An estimated 58 million people –
slightly less than 1% of the global population –
belong to other religions, including the Baha’i
faith, Jainism, Sikhism, Shintoism, Taoism,
Tenrikyo, Wicca and Zoroastrianism, to
mention just a few.
At the same time, the new study by the Pew
Forum also finds that roughly one-in-six
people around the globe (1.1 billion, or 16%)
have no religious affiliation. This makes the
unaffiliated the third-largest religious group
worldwide, behind Christians and Muslims, and about equal in size to the world’s Catholic
population. Surveys indicate that many of the unaffiliated hold some religious or spiritual
beliefs (such as belief in God or a universal spirit) even though they do not identify with a
particular faith.
To read more or download the full report.....
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