---
title: "Religious Composition of the World’s Migrants, 1990-2020"
description: "Explore our interactive table showing the religious composition of immigrants around the globe and how it's changed from 1990 to 2020."
date: "2024-08-19"
authors:
  - name: "nzanetti"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/08/19/religious-composition-of-the-worlds-migrants-1990-2020/"
categories:
  - "Immigrant Populations"
  - "Immigration & Migration"
  - "Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project"
  - "Religious Characteristics of Demographic Groups"
  - "Size & Demographic Characteristics of Religious Groups"
datasets:
  - name: "Dataset: Religious Composition of the World’s Migrants, 1990-2020"
    url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/dataset/dataset-religious-composition-of-the-worlds-migrants-1990-2020/"
---

# Religious Composition of the World’s Migrants, 1990-2020

This interactive table shows the estimated religious breakdown of immigrants to, and emigrants from, countries and regions of the world. Click the **“Living in”** button to see how many immigrants have moved into each country and remain there. Click the **“Born in”** button to see how many emigrants have moved away from each country and are living elsewhere.

You also can choose between **counts** and **percentages** (estimated number vs. % of all migrants). And you can **toggle between decades** to see how much change has occurred over time.

For an explanation of key findings and the methods we used to generate these estimates, read [“The Religious Composition of the World’s Migrants.”](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/08/19/the-religious-composition-of-the-worlds-migrants/)

Pew Research Center also has estimated the [religious composition of each country’s overall population](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/feature/religious-composition-by-country-2010-2020/).

**Who are migrants?**

The United Nations counts **international migrants** as people of any age who live outside their country (or in some cases, territory) of birth – regardless of their motives for migrating, their length of residence or their legal status.

In addition to naturalized citizens and permanent residents, the UN’s international migrant numbers include asylum-seekers and refugees, as well as people without official residence documents. The UN also includes some people who live in a country temporarily – like some students and guest workers – but it does not include short-term visitors like tourists, nor does it typically include military forces deployed abroad.

For brevity, this report refers to international migrants simply as **migrants. **Occasionally, we use the term **immigrants** to differentiate migrants living in a *destination country* from **emigrants** who have left an *origin country*. Every person who is living outside of his or her country of birth is all three – a migrant, an immigrant and an emigrant.

The analysis in this report focuses on existing **stocks** of international migrants – all people who now live outside their birth country, no matter when they left. We do not estimate migration **flows** – how many people move across borders in any single year.

****

-

Living inBorn in

CountPercent

1990200020102020

|  |

|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | Christians | Muslims | Unaffiliated | Hindus | Buddhists | Jews | Other religions | All religions |

|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | 100 |  |  | Christians | Muslims | Unaffiliated | Hindus | Buddhists | Jews | Other religions | All regligions100 |

Note: “Other religions” includes Baha’is, Sikhs and many other religious groups that cannot be analyzed separately because of insufficient data. Myanmar is also called Burma.