2. Christian population change
Christians remain the largest religious group. But they’re shrinking as a share of the global population, as many Christians are leaving religion altogether.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Christians remain the largest religious group. But they’re shrinking as a share of the global population, as many Christians are leaving religion altogether.
In 2022, global median scores on the Center’s Government Restrictions and Social Hostilities Indexes mirrored 2021. But some regions saw change since 2021.
U.S. Muslims tend to be younger and more highly educated than other Americans. But they’re similar to Christians on many religiousness measures.
The religiously unaffiliated population is the world’s third-largest religious category and grew the second-fastest between 2010 and 2020.
Migrants tend to move to regions where their religion is common, but some regions also see large influxes of migrants from minority religious groups.
Migration outpaced global population growth by 83% to 47% from 1990-2020. Buddhist and Muslim migrants more than doubled in number during this time.
In 2022, governments and/or social actors harassed religious groups in 192 countries and territories out of the 198 analyzed – two more than 2021.
Christians remain the largest religious group, and Muslims grew the fastest from 2010 to 2020. Read how the global share of Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and the religiously unaffiliated changed.
This appendix lists studied countries and territories by region. These regional categories were chosen to be consistent with our previous reports on the global demography of religion. The word “country” is used interchangeably with “countries and territories” in this report for the sake of brevity. We include countries and territories recognized as such by the […]
Half of the world’s population lives in just seven countries. But some of the world’s religious groups are even more concentrated than that.
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