Christians are the world’s largest religious group, and they are a majority in every region except the Asia-Pacific and Middle East-North Africa regions. But they are shrinking as a share of the global population, as large numbers of Christians around the world “switch” out of religion to become religiously unaffiliated. Sub-Saharan Africa has surpassed Europe as the region with the largest number of Christians.
Global change
The number of Christians worldwide grew by 6%, from 2.1 billion in 2010 to 2.3 billion in 2020, while non-Christians grew by 15%. As a result, Christians shrank as a percentage of the global population, with their share falling from 31% to 29%.
Regional change
Christian population change varied widely by region between 2010 and 2020.
The number (or count) of Christians fell in two regions. In Europe, Christians declined to 505 million (down 9%). In North America, they shrank to 238 million (down 11%). In every other region, the number of Christians grew. The count increased most in sub-Saharan Africa, to 697 million (up 31%).
The percentage of residents who are Christian fell in five regions and rose only in sub-Saharan Africa. Percentages dropped most in the regions that had large Christian populations to begin with.
In North America, Christians now make up 63% of the population (down 14 percentage points), while in Europe they make up 67% (down 8 points). In the Latin America-Caribbean region, Christians make up 85% of the population (down 5 points).
Christians made up less than 10% of the total population in both the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East-North Africa regions in 2010; that share has since dropped by less than 1 point in each region.
Sub-Saharan Africa was the only region where Christians expanded as a share of the population, though they grew by less than 1 point, to 62% in 2020.
Regional distribution of Christians
Over the past century, the world’s Christian population has become increasingly concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa.
Between 2010 and 2020, sub-Saharan Africa surpassed Europe as the region with the largest Christian population. As of 2020, sub-Saharan Africa was home to 31% of all the Christians in the world (up 6 points since 2010), while Europe held 22% of the global Christian population (down 4 points).
Many Christians also live in the Latin America-Caribbean region (24% of all Christians, down 1 point from 2010 to 2020) and North America (10%, down 2 points).
Countries with the highest Christian counts
The United States has more Christian residents than any other country. About one-tenth of the world’s total Christian population lives in the U.S., where an estimated 64% of people (of all ages) were Christian in 2020.
The 10 countries with the largest numbers of Christians are home to a combined 1.1 billion, or 47% of the world’s Christians.
While media stories in the 2010s often suggested that China was on the cusp of having the largest Christian population in the world, surveys indicate that China’s Christian population remains outside the 10 largest in the world. Based on religious self-identification measured in surveys, we estimate there were roughly 25 million Chinese Christians in 2020. For an in-depth analysis of Christianity in China, refer to the Christianity chapter of our 2023 report “Measuring Religion in China.”
Where did the Christian share of the population change the most?
In 41 countries, the share of the population identifying as Christian changed substantially (by at least 5 percentage points). In all but one of these countries – Mozambique – the Christian population share declined.
Countries where the share of Christians fell are scattered throughout every region of the world, but many are in Europe and other Western or English-speaking places where Christian majorities have been shrinking for decades. This change is largely driven by high rates of Christian disaffiliation – i.e., by people becoming religiously unaffiliated as adults after having been raised as Christians in childhood.
- The largest drop in the Christian share of a country’s population occurred in Australia (down 20 points), where Christians made up a little less than half of the population in 2020.
- Christians also declined steeply in Chile and Uruguay (down 18 points and 16 points, respectively).
- Christians in the U.S. and Canada declined at similar rates (down 14 points in each place).
The only country where Christians increased substantially was Mozambique (up 5 points), and they accounted for 61% of the country’s population in 2020. A governmental anti-religious campaign in Mozambique officially ended in the 1980s, and the share of Christians in that country has been increasing since.
Recommended Citation: Hackett, Conrad, Marcin Stonawski, Yunping Tong, Stephanie Kramer, Anne Shi and Dalia Fahmy. 2025. “How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020.” Pew Research Center. doi: 10.58094/fj71-ny11.
