Muslims living in the Asia-Pacific region, which includes 61 countries and territories, constitute 62% of all Muslims worldwide. The six Asian countries with the largest Muslim populations are: Indonesia (203 million), Pakistan (174 million), India (161 million), Bangladesh (145 million), Iran (74 million) and Turkey (74 million). Together these six countries are home to about […]
Nearly a Quarter of World Population is Muslim Washington, D.C.—A new, comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries finds that there are 1.57 billion Muslims of all ages living in the world today, representing 23% of an estimated 2009 world population of 6.8 billion. Released today by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion […]
Europe, which includes 50 countries and territories, has about 38 million Muslims, constituting about 5% of its population. European Muslims make up slightly more than 2% of the world’s Muslim population. Readers should bear in mind that estimates of the numbers of Muslims in Europe vary widely because of the difficulty of counting new immigrants. Nevertheless, […]
The Middle East-North Africa region, which includes 20 countries and territories, is home to an estimated 315 million Muslims, or about 20% of the world’s Muslim population. Of these, approximately 79 million live in Egypt, meaning that about one-in-four (25%) Muslims in the region live in Egypt. More than half the countries in the Middle […]
Of the approximately 4.6 million Muslims in the Americas, which includes 51 countries and territories, more than half, or about 2.5 million, live in the United States.1 But Canada has more than double the percentage of Muslims in the United States. Two percent of Canadians, about 700,000 people, are Muslim; in contrast, 0.8% of the […]
The below list of general sources provides bibliographic information for sources that were used to provide estimates for the Muslim populations of multiple countries. The subsequent list of sources by country provides abbreviated bibliographic information identifying which general sources were used to provide estimates for countries, as well as fuller bibliographic information for sources that […]
For the purposes of this report, sectarian differences among Muslims were simplified into two categories: Sunni and Shia. It should be noted, however, that both these groups contain self-identified Muslim communities that may be considered heterodox or nonmainstream by other Muslims. Unlike estimates for Muslim populations overall, almost no censuses and relatively few surveys ask […]
In only five of the 25 publics surveyed in 2009 did fewer than 30% express a favorable view of the U.S. — all of which are overwhelmingly Muslim.
The Government Restrictions Index is based on 20 questions used by the Pew Forum to assess whether governments – including at the local or provincial level – restrict religious practices or beliefs. The questions are intended to gauge the extent to which governments try to control religious groups or individuals, prohibit conversions from one faith […]
Restrictions on religion can result not only from the actions of governments but also from acts of violence and intimidation by private individuals, organizations or social groups. The Pew Forum’s Social Hostilities Index is a measure of concrete, hostile actions that effectively hinder the religious activities of the targeted individuals or groups. An absence of […]
