Across the globe, more than eight in 10 people identify with a religious tradition, and Christians make up the largest religious group, according to a new report from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
That report, “The Global Religious Landscape,” found that Christians account for just under one-third of the world’s population (32 percent), with 2.2 million adherents. Muslims are the second-largest group, with 23 percent of the population or 1.6 billion followers.
The third largest group is one that has been gaining significantly in numbers in the United States — those with no religious affiliation, accounting for about 16 percent of the world’s population (about one in every six persons) or 1.1 billion people. That unaffiliated group is now roughly the same size as the Roman Catholic population around the globe, the report states.
While people in the unaffiliated group don’t formally identify with any religious tradition, many who describe themselves as unaffiliated say in surveys that they hold some religious or spiritual beliefs, including (in some cases) a belief in God.
The new demographic study of more than 230 countries and territories estimates there are more than 5.8 billion religiously affiliated adults and children in the world — making up 84 percent of the world’s 6.9 billion population in 2010. The Pew Forum based the study on an analysis of statistical data — drawing from more than 2,500 census reports, surveys and population registers.
Some detailed findings of the report:
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The population percentages represented by other religious groups included Hindus (15 percent), Buddhists (7 percent), those who practice folk or traditional religions (nearly 6 percent) and Jews (0.2 percent, or about 14 million people). About 1 percent of the world’s population is lumped into a category of “other religions,” including everything from Baha’i to Sikh to Wicca.
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Nearly three-fourths of the world’s people (73 percent) live in areas in which their religion is in the majority. In other words, only 27 percent live as religious minorities. (That doesn’t count subgroups who may be minorities, such as Sunni Muslims living in primarily Shiite regions.)
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Not surprisingly, there is considerable geographic variation of religious affiliation. A number of religious groups are concentrated in the Asia-Pacific zone, including nearly all of the Buddhists and Hindus (99 percent of each) and about 90 percent of the practitioners of traditional and folk religions (which include everything from Chinese folk religions to African traditional religions to Native American and aboriginal religions).
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Three-fourths of the religiously unaffiliated live in the heavily populated Asia-Pacific region. For example, the religiously unaffiliated population in China (700 million) is more than twice the entire U.S. population.
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Christians are the most geographically dispersed group — with about a quarter of Christians each living in Europe; in Latin America and the Caribbean; in sub-Saharan Africa; and in the rest of the world combined. Fewer than 1 percent of Christians live in the Middle East and North Africa, where the religion began.
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Some religions have much younger populations — particularly those those with lots of adherents in fast-growing developing countries. The median age of Muslims (23 years) and Hindus (26 years) are younger than the median age of the world’s population (28 years). Others have a median age that’s older than the world’s population — Christians (30 years) and religiously unaffiliated (34 years).
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About half of those who describe themselves as Christian are Catholic. About 37 percent identify as Protestant, and 12 percent as Orthodox.
“The Global Religious Landscape” report was produced as part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, which analyzes religious change and its impact around the world. It reflects people’s religious self-identification, but not how active people are in practicing their faith.
