| Worldwide Adherents of All Religions by Six Continental Areas, Mid-2007 |
| Christians |
441,184,000 |
359,614,000 |
565,254,700 |
533,386,000 |
273,388,400 |
26,990,300 |
2,199,817,400 |
33.3 |
239 |
| Affiliated Christians |
415,932,000 |
353,986,000 |
540,826,000 |
527,382,000 |
219,451,000 |
22,741,000 |
2,080,318,000 |
31.4 |
239 |
| Roman Catholics |
155,246,000 |
127,074,000 |
274,865,000 |
472,317,000 |
83,377,000 |
8,637,000 |
1,121,516,000 |
17.0 |
236 |
| Independents |
96,011,000 |
189,463,000 |
24,252,000 |
46,013,000 |
75,627,000 |
1,730,000 |
433,096,000 |
6.5 |
222 |
| Protestants |
125,152,000 |
59,201,000 |
70,345,000 |
58,130,000 |
61,077,000 |
7,906,000 |
381,811,000 |
5.8 |
233 |
| Orthodox |
40,651,000 |
13,700,000 |
170,468,000 |
973,000 |
6,524,000 |
830,000 |
233,146,000 |
3.5 |
136 |
| Anglicans |
47,036,000 |
845,000 |
26,070,000 |
853,000 |
2,836,000 |
4,946,000 |
82,586,000 |
1.2 |
165 |
| Marginal Christians |
3,615,000 |
3,310,000 |
4,523,000 |
11,526,000 |
11,755,000 |
692,000 |
35,421,000 |
0.5 |
215 |
| Doubly affiliated |
-51,779,000 |
-39,607,000 |
-29,697,000 |
-62,430,000 |
-21,745,000 |
-2,000,000 |
-207,258,000 |
3.1 -3.1 |
181 181 |
| Unaffiliated Christians |
25,252,000 |
5,628,000 |
24,428,700 |
6,004,000 |
53,937,400 |
4,249,300 |
119,499,400 |
1.8 |
232 |
| Muslims |
378,135,700 |
961,961,000 |
39,691,800 |
1,777,000 |
5,450,600 |
438,400 |
1,387,454,500 |
21.0 |
210 |
| Hindus |
2,757,000 |
868,348,000 |
1,680,000 |
760,000 |
1,715,000 |
466,000 |
875,726,000 |
13.2 |
126 |
| Chinese universists |
37,500 |
384,206,000 |
309,000 |
183,000 |
740,000 |
146,000 |
385,621,500 |
5.8 |
96 |
| Buddhists |
158,000 |
379,080,000 |
1,775,000 |
743,000 |
3,288,000 |
565,000 |
385,609,000 |
5.8 |
136 |
| Ethnoreligionists |
113,605,000 |
145,997,000 |
1,152,000 |
3,733,000 |
1,579,000 |
339,000 |
266,405,000 |
4.0 |
145 |
| Neoreligionists |
123,000 |
103,548,000 |
380,000 |
800,000 |
1,594,000 |
88,300 |
106,533,300 |
1.6 |
107 |
| Sikhs |
62,900 |
21,701,000 |
478,000 |
6,600 |
630,000 |
49,000 |
22,927,500 |
0.3 |
44 |
| Jews |
129,000 |
5,718,000 |
1,840,000 |
971,000 |
6,191,000 |
107,000 |
14,956,000 |
0.2 |
135 |
| Spiritists |
3,200 |
2,000 |
139,000 |
13,193,000 |
164,000 |
7,400 |
13,508,600 |
0.2 |
56 |
| Baha'is |
2,135,000 |
3,677,000 |
139,000 |
891,000 |
718,000 |
137,000 |
7,697,000 |
0.1 |
219 |
| Confucianists |
300 |
6,373,000 |
18,000 |
800 |
0 |
52,200 |
6,444,300 |
0.1 |
15 |
| Jains |
82,400 |
5,173,000 |
0 |
0 |
8,400 |
700 |
5,264,500 |
0.1 |
11 |
| Taoists |
0 |
3,392,000 |
0 |
0 |
12,200 |
0 |
3,404,200 |
0.1 |
5 |
| Shintoists |
0 |
2,732,000 |
0 |
7,600 |
61,800 |
0 |
2,801,400 |
0.0 |
8 |
| Zoroastrians |
1,000 |
152,000 |
5,500 |
0 |
20,600 |
1,700 |
180,800 |
0.0 |
24 |
| Other religionists |
80,000 |
75,000 |
260,000 |
110,000 |
670,000 |
10,000 |
1,205,000 |
0.0 |
79 |
| Nonreligious |
6,246,000 |
615,877,000 |
94,750,000 |
17,092,000 |
38,821,000 |
4,040,000 |
776,826,000 |
11.7 |
238 |
| Atheists |
606,000 |
128,048,000 |
19,787,000 |
2,829,000 |
1,779,000 |
416,000 |
153,465,000 |
2.3 |
220 |
| Total population |
945,346,000 |
3,995,674,000 |
727,659,000 |
576,483,000 |
336,831,000 |
33,854,000 |
6,615,847,000 |
100.0 |
239 |
|
| 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 2004 Revision
(New York: UN, 2005), 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. |
| 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 persons religion is what he
or she professes, confesses, or states that it is. Totals are
enumerated for each of the worlds 239 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-2007. |
| 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 2007 being
2,080,318,000, 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, Jehovahs Witnesses, Christian Science, and Religious Science). |
| Muslims. 84% Sunnites, 14% Shi'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 Committees 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. |
| Nonreligious. Persons professing no
religion, nonbelievers, agnostics, freethinkers, uninterested, or
dereligionized secularists indifferent to all religion but not
militantly so. |
| Atheists. Persons professing
atheism, skepticism, disbelief, or irreligion, including the militantly
antireligious (opposed to all religion). In the past two 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-2007, as given in World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision. |
|