---
title: "Mexico, Host to Visit by the Pope, Has World’s Second Largest Catholic Population"
description: "Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Mexico today for his first visit to a Spanish-speaking country in Latin America.  Approximately 8.8% of the world’s Catholics live in Mexico, the second largest Catholic population in the world."
date: "2012-03-22"
authors:
  - name: "Russell Heimlich"
    job_title: "Former web developer"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/russell-heimlich/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2012/03/22/mexico-host-to-visit-by-the-pope-has-worlds-second-largest-catholic-population/"
categories:
  - "Catholicism"
  - "Global Religious Demographics"
  - "Size & Demographic Characteristics of Religious Groups"
---

# Mexico, Host to Visit by the Pope, Has World’s Second Largest Catholic Population

Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Mexico today for his first visit to a Spanish-speaking country in Latin America.Mexico accounts for 8.8% of the world’s Catholics, the second largest Catholic population in the world after Brazil (which the Pope visited in 2007). More than eight-in-ten (84.9%) Mexicans are Catholic.

The pope will head to Cuba next week, a country which has about 5,820,000 Catholics. Catholics make up a little over half of the country’s population.

There are approximately 432 million Catholics in Latin America, representing 39% of the world Catholic population.

For a report on the world’s Christian populations, including interactive maps and sortable data tables, go to the [Global Christianity](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/Christian/Global-Christianity-worlds-christian-population.aspx) page of the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. [Read More](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/Christian/Catholic/Catholics-in-Mexico-and-Cuba.aspx?src=prc-number)