How Many Registered Religions Are There World Wide?

World Map

Religions of the world

Numbers of adherents of major religions, their
geographical distribution, date founded, and
sacred texts

Number of adherents of world religions:

Co-ordinate to David Barrett et al, editors of the "World Christian Encyclopedia: A comparative survey of churches and religions - AD 30 to 2200," there are xix major world religions which are subdivided into a total of 270 big religious groups, and many smaller ones. 34,000 separate Christian groups take been identified in the world. "Over half of them are independent churches that are non interested in linking with the big denominations." ₁

About people in the world follow one of the religions listed in the table below. Included is the name of the religion, the approximate date of its origin, its principal sacred or ethical texts (if any) and its estimated numerical strength (both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the earth'south population.)

These data are often based on census or public opinion data.₂ A person is considered to exist of a particular religion if they say that they are of that organized religion. Thus, as of 2015, nigh lxx% of the adults in both the U.S. and Canada are Christians. The U.S. number is gradually declining about i per centum point per twelvemonth, even though the full population of the U.S. is increasing.

Many individuals and religious groups accept much more strict definitions for membership. For example, many conservative Christians believe that one has to be "born again" in gild to exist counted as a Christian. Using this definition, only about 35% of Americans would exist counted equally Christians. This difference in definitions betwixt conservative Christians and the rest of the population causes much confusion.

Some of the approximately 1,000 Christian faith groups in the U.South. and Canada believe themselves to be the only true Christian denomination. Thus, depending on the definition used, the perceived per centum of Christians in the U.S. are betwixt 0.1 and 75% of the total population.

Pie-chart

Prototype from the U.South. Center for World Mission

Geographical distribution of prevailing organized religions throughout the world:

Map showingthe predominant religion for each country Index ₃

This map shows the most popular organized faith in each land of the world. And so, for example, Holland is shown every bit steel bluish (mixed Catholic and Protestant) even though the largest group in the land are NOTAs (persons NOT Affiliated with whatever organized organized religion). Similarly, the U.k. is shown as Protestant Christianity fifty-fifty though weekly church attendance is in the single digits.

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Basic information on diverse religions:

Religion	Date Founded	Sacred Texts	Membership ₄	% of Earth ₅
Christianity	xxx CE	The Bible	2,039 meg	32% (dropping)
Islam	622 CE	Qur'an & Hadith	i,570 million	22% (growing)
Hinduism	1500 BCE with truly ancient roots	Bhagavad-Gita, Upanishads, & Rig Veda	950 meg	13% (stable)
No religion (Notation i)	-	None	775 meg	12% (dropping)
Chinese folk faith	270 BCE	None	390 million	vi%
Buddhism	523 BCE	The Tripitaka (consisting of the Vinaya, the Sutras, and the Abhidharma)	350 - 1,600 million (2)	6% (stable?)
Tribal Religions, Shamanism, Animism	Prehistory	Oral tradition	232 million	iv%
Atheists	No date	None	150 1000000	ii%
New religions.	Various	Various	103 million	2%
Sikhism	1500 CE	Guru Granth Sahib	23.8 million	<i%
Judaism	Note iii	Torah, Tanach, & Talmud	14.v million	<1%
Spiritism			12.vi million	<1%
Taoism Note 4	550 BCE	Tao-te-Ching	12 to 173 million	<one%
Baha'i Faith	1863 CE	Alkitab Alaqdas	7.4 million	<1%
Confucianism	520 BCE	Lun Yu	half dozen.3 million	<1%
Jainism	570 BCE	Siddhanta, Pakrit	four.3 million	<1%
Zoroastrianism	600 to 6000 BCE	Avesta	two.7 million	<1%
Shinto	500 CE	Kojiki, Nohon Shoki	2.7 million	<i%
Other	Various	Various	1.1 one thousand thousand	<1%
Wicca Note 5	800 BCE, 1940 CE	None	0.5 one thousand thousand?	<1%

Notes:

Note 1: Persons with no formal, organized religion include Agnostics, Atheists, Deists, freethinkers, humanists, secularists, etc. Their numbers are growing in Europe, North America, and other places. With the collapse of Communism in the USSR, the full numbers worldwide dropped precipitously and are now increasing.
Note 2: There is no consensus on the number of Buddhists in the worlds. More info.
Note three: There is no consensus on the data of founding of Judaism. Some merits that Adam and Eve were the showtime Jews, and lived circa 4000 BCE; others suggest that they, and all biblical persons prior to Male monarch David are mythical; they never existed. Some would place the date at the fourth dimension of Abraham, circa 1900 BCE. Some date it to the Exodus from Egypt circa 1490 BCE. Others say that no Exodus happened. On the basis of archeological show, many believe that the ancient Hebrews were originally a group of Canaanites who gradually separated from the main body and somewhen developed a divide culture. That would certainly explain why so many Jewish holy days were derived from the Pagan Canaanite culture.
Note 4: Sources differ greatly. A sampling of the Internet on 2015-Dec-02 showed estimates from to 12 to 173 million:
- Co-ordinate to a statistical overview in 2011 of religions in Cathay:
  
  "The number of Taoists is hard to estimate, due to a multifariousness of factors including defining Taoism. Co-ordinate to a survey of religion in People's republic of china in the year 2010, the number of people practicing some form of Chinese folk religion is near to 950 million (70% of the Chinese). Among these, 173 million (xiii%) practice some form of Taoist-defined folk faith. Further in detail, 12 million people have passed some formal initiation into Taoism, or adhere exclusively to information technology." ₆
- Adherents.com notes that: "Taoism and Confucianism (mixed with Buddhism) are major cultural and philosophical influences in many East Asian nations. Religious Taoism in still very pregnant in Taiwan." _vii
- ChartsBin.com reports precicely 6,111,056 people equally of 2006. ₈
- Patheos.com and ReligionFacts.com report 20 million followers of Taoism. _9,10
Note 5: We have included Wicca even though their numbers are small considering such a large percentage of our site'southward visitors are of that faith. There is no reliable measure out of their numbers. Some Wiccans believe that their religion can be traced back to the origins of the Celtic people; other propose information technology is a recently created organized religion and is based on ancient symbols, deities, seasonal celebration, and other factors.

Related essays on this spider web site:

References used in the in a higher place essay:

The following information sources were used to fix and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily however active today.

David B. Barrett, et al., "World Christian Encyclopedia : A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World," Oxford Academy Press, (2001). Read reviews or order this volume
J.W. Wright, Editor, "The Universal Annual, 1996", Andrews & McMeel, Kansas City.
This file is licensed nether the Artistic Commons Attribution-Share Akin three.0 Unported license. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/
Data from the Globe Almanac and Book of Facts, 2004, Folio 612. Derived from the "Encyclopedia Britannica Volume of the Year, 2003.
Based on the UN projected globe population of half-dozen.301 billion for mid-2003.
Katharina Wenzel-Teuber, David Strait. "People'southward Commonwealth of China: Religions and Churches Statistical Overview 2011." Download in PDF format at: http://www.prc-zentrum.de/
"Predominant Religions,"Adherents, at: http://www.adherents.com/
"Taoism adherents by country,"ChartsBin, 2011, at: http://chartsbin.com/
"Religion library: Taosim," Patheos, at: http://www.patheos.com/
"Taoism." ReligionFacts.com. 2015-NOV-10, at: http://www.religionfacts.com/