Download the Methodology as a PDF (180 KB, 17pages) This study provides comprehensive demographic estimates of the size and distribution of eight major religious groups in the 232 countries and territories for which the United Nations Population Division provides general population estimates as of 2010.16 It includes estimates for Christians, Muslims, the religiously unaffiliated, Hindus, […]
The prospect of dying has always fascinated, haunted and, ultimately, defined human beings. From the beginnings of civilization, people have contemplated their own mortality – and considered the possibility of immortality.
Three years ago the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life launched an effort to generate up-to-date and fully sourced estimates of the current size and projected growth of the world’s major religious groups. As part of this multi-phase project, the Pew Forum has assembled data on the size and geographic distribution of […]
Roughly a third of Asian Americans (32%) now belong to a religious tradition different from the one in which they were raised. By comparison, the Pew Forum’s 2007 “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey” found that 28% of all U.S. adults belong to a religion that is different from their childhood faith.30 Japanese, Chinese and Korean Americans […]
Most of the world’s Muslims identify as Sunnis or Shias.8 However, many Muslims do not identify with either sect but rather see themselves as “just a Muslim.” At least one-in-five Muslims in 22 of the 38 countries where the question was asked identify themselves in this nonsectarian way.9 Other affiliations, such as membership in a […]
The number of Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace. One-fifth of the U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – are religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research Center polling.
Washington,D.C. – As theirnumbers rise, Asian Americans have been largely responsible for the growth ofnon-Abrahamic faiths in the U.S., particularly Buddhism and Hinduism. Countedtogether, Buddhists and Hindus now account for about the same share of the U.S.public as Jews (roughly 2%). At the same time, most Asian Americans belong tothe country’s two largest religious groups: […]
