China has the world’s largest population (1.426 billion), but India (1.417 billion) is expected to claim this title next year.

Muslim societies have gained a reputation in recent decades for failing to adequately educate women. But a new analysis of Pew Research Center data on educational attainment and religion suggests that economics, not religion, is the key factor limiting the education of Muslim women.

In the coming decades, the Muslim share of Europe's population is expected to grow – and could more than double. Read five facts about the Muslim population in Europe.

Though Christians make up nearly a third of Earth’s 7.3 billion people, the number of Christians in Europe is in decline.

While either Christians or Muslims make up the largest religious group in nine-in-ten nations around the globe, the religiously unaffiliated rank second in size in most of the Americas and Europe, as well as in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

India is projected to have 310 million Muslims (11% of the global total), making it the country with the largest population of Muslims in the world.

Half of the world’s population lives in just six countries. But in many cases, the world’s major religious groups are even more concentrated.

The pope’s popularity hasn't yet produced a Catholic resurgence in the U.S. in terms of the share of Americans who identify as Catholic, or the share of those who report attending Mass weekly.