Major religious groups

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Religions of the world, mapped by distribution, with no "sects".
Predominant religions of the world, mapped by state

In the 20th century study of comparative religion, major religious groups or "world religions" were divided up[citation needed] by adherence to a specific philosophy or theology. However, there is no consensus[citation needed] among researchers[who?] as to the best methodology for determining the religiosity profile of the world's population. A number of fundamental aspects are unresolved:

  • Whether to count "historically predominant religious culture[s]"[1]
  • Whether to count only those who actively "practice" a particular religion[2]
  • Whether to count based on a concept of "adherence"[3]
  • Whether to count only those who expressly self-identify with a particular denomination[4]
  • Whether to count only adults, or to include children as well
  • Whether to rely only on official government-provided statistics[5]
  • Whether to use multiple sources and ranges or single "best source[s]"

Nonetheless, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism are unquestionably the largest religions by far. However, most lists of major religions include Judaism and other religions who only number in the many millions because of their historic relevance.

Contents

[edit] By world population

The table below lists religions classified by philosophy; however, religious philosophy is not always the determining factor in local practice. Please note that this table includes heterodox movements as adherents to their larger philosophical category, although this may be disputed by others within that category. For example, Cao Đài is listed because it claims to be a separate category from Buddhism, while Hoa Hao is not, even though they are similar new religious movements.

The population numbers below are computed by a combination of census reports, random surveys (in countries where religion data is not collected in census, for example USA or France), and self-reported attendance numbers, but results can vary widely depending on the way questions are phrased, the definitions of religion used and the bias of the agencies or organizations conducting the survey. Informal or unorganized religions are especially difficult to count. Some organizations may wildly inflate their numbers.

Religious category Number of followers Cultural tradition Main regions covered
Christianity 2,100,000,000 – 2,200,000,000[6][7] Abrahamic religions Predominant in the Western world (Europe, the Americas, Oceania), Sub-Saharan Africa and the Philippines. Minorities worldwide, see Christianity by country.
Islam 1,300,000,000 – 1,600,000,000[8][9] Abrahamic religions Middle East, Northern Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, Western Africa, Indian subcontinent, Malay Archipelago with large population centers existing in Eastern Africa, Balkan Peninsula, Russia and China.[10]|-
Hinduism 950,000,000 – 1,400,000,000[11] Indian religions Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Fiji, Guyana, Trinidad, Mauritius, Suriname, Bali, Australasia, Northern America,United Kingdom, France,Germany, Finland, Sweeden, Swizerland and The Netherlands.
Buddhism 250,000,000 – 500,000,000[12] Indian religions Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka, East Asia, Indochina, regions of Russia and The Netherlands.
Sikhism 20,000,000 - 30,000,000[13] Indian religions Indian subcontinent, Australasia, Northern America, Southeast Asia, the United Kingdom and Western Europe.
Judaism 12,000,000 – 18,000,000[14] Abrahamic religions Israel and Jewish diaspora (meaning mostly North America and Europe)
Bahá'í Faith 7,600,000[15] – 7,900,000[16] Abrahamic religions/Iranian/Independent[17] Noted for being dispersed worldwide[18][19] but the top ten populations (amounting to about 60% of the Bahá'í World Faith adherents) are (in order of size of community) India, United States, Vietnam, Kenya, DR of the Congo, Philippines, Zambia, South Africa, Iran, Bolivia[20]
Jainism 6,000,000 – 12,000,000[21] Indian religions India, and East Africa
Cheondoism 3,000,000[22] Korean North Korea
Tenrikyo 2,000,000[23] Japanese Japan, Brazil
Cao Dai 1,000,000 - 3,000,000[24] Vietnamese Vietnam
Ahl-e Haqq 1,000,000[25] Iranian Iraq, Iran
Seicho-no-Ie 800,000[23] Japanese Japan
Yazidism 700,000[26] Kurdish mainly Iraq
Rastafari movement 700,000[27] Abrahamic religions c. Jamaica, Caribbean, Africa
Unitarian Universalism 630,000[28] Western United States, Europe
African traditional and diasporic religions Millions[29] Folk religions Africa, Americas
Other folk religions Millions[29] Folk religions India, Asia
Chinese folk religions including Taoism and Confucianism Varies[29] China China
Shinto Varies[29] Japanese Japan
Non religions including Agnosticism, Atheism and Secular 1,100,000,000[29]

[edit] Trends in adherence

Map showing relative importance of religion by country. Based on a 2006-2008 worldwide survey by Gallup.
World map showing the percentages of people who regard religion as "non-important" according to a 2002 Pew survey

Since the late 19th century, the demographics of religion have changed a great deal. Some countries with a historically large Christian population have experienced a significant decline in the numbers of professed active Christians: see demographics of atheism. Symptoms of the decline in active participation in Christian religious life include declining recruitment for the priesthood and monastic life, as well as diminishing attendance at church. On the other hand, since the 19th century, large areas of sub-saharan Africa have been converted to Christianity, and this area of the world has the highest population growth rate. In the realm of Western civilization, there has been an increase in the number of people who identify themselves as secular humanists. In many countries, such as the People's Republic of China, communist governments have discouraged religion, making it difficult to count the actual number of believers. However, after the collapse of communism in numerous countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, religious life has been experiencing resurgence there, both in the form of traditional Eastern Christianity and particularly in the forms of Neopaganism and Far Eastern religions.

Following is some available data based on the work of the World Christian Encyclopedia:[30]

Trends in annual growth of adherence
1970-1985[31] 1990-2000[32][33] 2000-2005[34]
3.65% - Bahá'í Faith 2.65% - Zoroastrianism 1.84% - Islam
2.74% - Islam 2.28% - Bahá'í Faith 1.70% - Bahá'í Faith
2.34% - Hinduism 2.13% - Islam 1.62% - Sikhism
1.67% - Buddhism 1.87% - Sikhism 1.57% - Hinduism
1.64% - Christianity 1.69% - Hinduism 1.32% - Christianity
1.09% - Judaism 1.36% - Christianity
1.09% - Buddhism
The annual growth in the world population over the same period is 1.41%.

Studies conducted by the Pew Research Center have found that, generally, poorer nations had a larger proportion of citizens who found religion to be very important than richer nations, with the exceptions of the United States[35] and Kuwait.[36]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Pippa Norris, Ronald Inglehart (2007-01-06), Sacred and Secular, Religion and Politics Worldwide, Cambridge University Press, p. 43–44, http://books.google.com/books?id=dto-P2YfWJIC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA43#v=onepage&q=&f=false, retrieved 2006-12-29 
  2. ^ Pew Research Center (2002-12-19). "Among Wealthy Nations U.S. Stands Alone in its Embrace of Religion". Pew Research Center. http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=167. Retrieved 2006-10-12. 
  3. ^ adherents.com (2005-08-28). "Major Religions of the World Ranked by Number of Adherents". adherents.com. http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html. Retrieved 2006-10-12. 
  4. ^ worldvaluessurvey.com (2005-06-28). "World Values Survey". worldvaluessurvey.com. http://www.worldvaluessurvey.com/. Retrieved 2006-10-12. 
  5. ^ unstats.un.org (2007.01.06). "United Nations Statistics Division - Demographic and Social Statistics". United Nations Statistics Division. http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/sconcerns/popchar/popcharMeta.aspx. Retrieved 2007-01-06. 
  6. ^ The List: The World’s Fastest-Growing Religions
  7. ^ "Major Religions of the World — Ranked by Number of Adherents". http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html. Retrieved 2007-07-03. 
  8. ^ The world's fastest growing religions
  9. ^ "Mapping the Global Muslim Population". http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=450. Retrieved 2009-10-08. 
  10. ^ "World distribution of muslim population". Pew Centre. October 2009. http://pewresearch.org/assets/pewforum-muslim-project/weighted-map.htm. Retrieved 26 December 2009. 
  11. ^ [Clarke, Peter B. (editor), The Religions of the World: Understanding the Living Faiths, Marshall Editions Limited: USA (1993); pg. 125]
  12. ^ Compilation of many sources at adherents.com
  13. ^ Compilation of many sources at adherents.com
  14. ^ Compilation of many sources at adherents.com
  15. ^ "World Religions (2005)". QuickLists > The World > Religions. The Association of Religion Data Archives. 2005. http://www.thearda.com/QuickLists/QuickList_125.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-04. 
  16. ^ "World: People: Religions". CIA World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. 2007. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html#people. Retrieved 2009-09-06. 
  17. ^ Historically, the Bahá'í Faith arose in 19th century Persia, in the context of Shi'a Islam, and thus may be classed on this basis as a divergent strand of Islam, placing it in the Abrahamic tradition. However, the Bahá'í Faith considers itself an independent religious tradition, which draws from Islam but also other traditions. The Bahá'í Faith may also be classed as a new religious movement, due to its comparatively recent origin, or may be considered sufficiently old and established for such classification to not be applicable.
  18. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica (2002). "Worldwide Adherents of All Religions by Six Continental Areas, Mid-2002". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica. 
  19. ^ MacEoin, Denis (2000). "Baha'i Faith". in Hinnells, John R.. The New Penguin Handbook of Living Religions: Second Edition. Penguin. ISBN 0140514805. 
  20. ^ "Most Baha'i Nations (2005)". QuickLists > Compare Nations > Religions >. The Association of Religion Data Archives. 2005. http://www.thearda.com/QuickLists/QuickList_40.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-04. 
  21. ^ Figures for the population of Jains differ from just over six million to twelve million due to difficulties of Jain identity, with Jains in some areas counted as a Hindu sect. Many Jains do not return Jainism as their religion on census forms for various reasons such as certain Jain castes considering themselves both Hindu and Jain. Following a major advertising campaign urging Jains to register as such, the 1981 Census of India returned 3.19 million Jains. This was estimated at the time to still be half the true number. The 2001 Census of India had 8.4 million Jains.
  22. ^ Self-reported figures from 1999; North Korea only (South Korean followers are minimal according to self-reported figures). In The A to Z of New Religious Movements by George D. Chryssides. ISBN 0810855887
  23. ^ a b Self-reported figures printed in Japanese Ministry of Education's Shuukyou Nenkan, 2003
  24. ^ Sergei Blagov. "Caodaism in Vietnam : Religion vs Restrictions and Persecution". IARF World Congress, Vancouver, Canada, July 31st, 1999.
  25. ^ Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa (Detroit: Thompson Gale, 2004) p. 82
  26. ^ International Committee for European Security & Cooperation: statement presented by J.B.Daud Baghistani, ICESC Deputy Permanent Representative to the Commission on Human Rights... 10 Feb. 1995
  27. ^ Leonard E. Barrett. The Rastafarians: Sounds of Cultural Dissonance. Beacon Press, 1988. p. viii.
  28. ^ American Religious Identification Survey
  29. ^ a b c d e The adherent counts of folk traditions vary depending on how "belief" is determined, but each has definitely more than 500,000.
  30. ^ The results have been studied and found "highly correlated with other sources of data," but "consistently gave a higher estimate for percent Christian in comparison to other cross-national data sets." Hsu, Becky; Reynolds, Amy; Hackett, Conrad; Gibbon, James (2008-07-09), "Estimating the Religious Composition of All Nations" (pdf), Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, http://www.princeton.edu/~bhsu/Hsu2008.pdf 
  31. ^ International Community, Bahá'í (1992), "How many Bahá'ís are there?", The Bahá'ís: 14, http://www.bahai.com/thebahais/pg14.htm .
  32. ^ Barrett, David A. (2001). World Christian Encyclopedia. pp. 4. http://www.bible.ca/global-religion-statistics-world-christian-encyclopedia.htm. 
  33. ^ Barrett, David; Johnson, Todd (2001). "Global adherents of the World's 19 distinct major religions". William Carey Library. http://web.archive.org/web/20080228224811/http://www.gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/globalchristianity/gd/wct-1-2.pdf. Retrieved 2006-10-12. 
  34. ^ Staff (May 2007). "The List: The World’s Fastest-Growing Religions". Foreign Policy (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace). http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3835. 
  35. ^ Pew Research Center (2002-12-19). "Among Wealthy Nations U.S. Stands Alone in its Embrace of Religion". Pew Research Center. http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=167. Retrieved 2006-10-12. 
  36. ^ Pew Research Center (2008-01-01). "Income and Religiosity". http://benmuse.typepad.com/ben_muse/2008/01/wealth-and-reli.html. Retrieved 2009-09-14. 

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