Most of the world believes in a religion, it’s a known thing. Have you ever wondered which religion or belief has the most followers? What faith or religion do people in various parts of the world predominantly hold? In this article, we will answer this question in light of research from the Pew Research Center.
The world has become more secular, especially in the past 10 years, but the population of people with a religion or belief is of course more. The proportion of people who have a belief in the world population is exactly 84%. Let’s see how the distribution of beliefs of 84% of the world’s population is.
How is the world’s belief distribution?
- Christianity: 31%
- Muslim: 25%
- Non-believers: 15.6%
- Hindu: 15.2%
- Buddhism: 6.6%
- Folk religion: 5.6%
- Judaism: 0.2%
Worldwide, Christianity has the largest number of believers of these religions. Approximately 31% of the world’s population is Christian, followed closely by Muslims with 25%. Islam is the most dominant religion in the Middle East, although over 95% of Cambodians and Thais believe in Buddhism. Jews make up only 0.2% of the world. However, Judaism has the smallest population of the major religions.
Christianity: 31%
Christians relative to the entire population in the region:
- Asia and Pacific: 7.2%
- Europe: 72.2%
- Latin America and the Caribbean: 89.7%
- Middle East and North Africa: 3.6%
- South Africa: 62%
- North America: 74.6%
The religion with the most followers in the world, as you can imagine, is Christianity. 2.4 billion of the world’s population are Christians. All of the American continents, the southern part of the African continent, the entire Australian continent and all of Europe + Russia belong to this religion.
Muslims: 25%
Muslims by total population in the region:
- Asia and Pacific: 25.7%
- Europe: 6.8%
- Latin America and the Caribbean: 0.1%
- Middle East and North Africa: 93.1%
- South Africa: 31.4%
- North America: 1.3%
The second most believed religion in the world is Islam. According to the information received, Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world and it is estimated that there will be 3 billion Muslims in the world by 2060. Islam is the dominant religion in Northern Africa, the entire Middle East, the Pacific Islands and Central Asia.
Nonbelievers: 15.6%
Non-believers relative to the entire population in the region:
- Asia and Pacific: 20%
- Europe: 20%
- Latin America and the Caribbean: 8%
- Middle East and North Africa: 0.6%
- South Africa: 3%
- North America: 19.2%
Of course, the number of people who do not believe in a religion or god is quite high. For example, 720 million people in China state that they do not feel attached to a religion. The distribution of non-religious people is also almost equally distributed throughout the world, except for Africa and the Middle East.
Hinduism: 15.2%
Hindus relative to the entire population in the region:
- Asia and Pacific: 26%
- Europe: 0.2%
- Latin America and Caribbean: 0.1%
- Middle East and North Africa: 0.6%
- South Africa: 0.2%
- North America: 0.8%
Hinduism is the third largest religion in the world, although it is dominant in almost only one part of the world. There are currently 1.2 billion Hindus in the world. Although Hinduism is rarely a country’s main religion, it has a global presence. Many regions around the world, including the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, North America, and South America, support significant Hindu populations.
Buddhism: 6.6%
Buddhists relative to the entire population in the region:
- Asia and Pacific: 11.3%
- Europe: 0.2%
- Latin America and Caribbean: 0.1%
- Middle East and North Africa: 0.2%
- South Africa: 0.1%
- North America: 1.2%
It is estimated that half of the world’s Buddhists now live in China, yet only account for 18% of the country’s population. they form the segment. The rest of the Buddhists are found in East and South Asia. Buddhism in Asia is both a matter of identity and practice. Scholars and journalists say that many Asian countries can engage in Buddhist practices without seeing themselves as part of any organized religion.
Folk religion: 5.6%
People who believe in folk religion relative to the entire population in the region:
- Asia and Pacific: % 8.6
- Europe: 0.1%
- Latin America and Caribbean: 1.8%
- Middle East and North Africa: 0.3%
- South Africa: 3.2%
- North America: 0.4%
Folk religion is any ethnic or cultural religious practice that falls outside the doctrine of organized religion. Based on popular beliefs and sometimes referred to as popular or local religion, the term refers to how people experience and practice religion in their daily lives. You can say what folk religion means, but a significant 5% of the world population belongs to such folk religions.
As of 2020, an estimated 429 million people, or about 6% of the world’s total population, were identified as members of folk or traditional religions. Some notable folk religions include African traditional religions, Chinese folk religions, Native American religions, and Australian indigenous religions.
Judaism: 0.2%
Jews by total population in the region:
- Asia and Pacific: 0.1%
- Europe: 0.2%
- Latin America and Caribbean: 0.1%
- Middle East and North Africa: 1.6%
- South Africa: 0.1%
- North America: 1.6%
Although Jews can be found around the world, Judaism seems to exist in one place in the world (at least That’s the point of view). You can find Jews mostly in Israel, of course, but there are a lot of Jews living in the USA. Jews currently make up 76% of Israel’s population.
Thus, we have listed the distribution of religions in the world, and what religion the people in which region believe in what proportion. What do you think? Please do not forget to share your thoughts with us in the comments.
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