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The list of religious populations article provides a comprehensive overview of the distribution and size of religious groups around the world. This article aims to present statistical information on the number of adherents to various religions, including major faiths such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and others, as well as smaller religious communities.
The world's principal religions and spiritual traditions may be classified into a small number of major groups, though this is not a uniform practice. This theory began in the 18th century with the goal of recognizing the relative degrees of civility in different societies, [2] but this concept of a ranking order has since fallen into disrepute in many contemporary cultures.
According to the 2011 census, the population is 2.8 million. It is difficult to assess the size of religious groups because nearly 20% of respondents declined to answer the optional census question about religious affiliation. Several religious leaders challenge the census results.
This is an overview of religion by country or territory in 2010 according to a 2012 Pew Research Center report. [1] The article Religious information by country gives information from The World Factbook of the CIA and the U.S. Department of State .
Some academics studying the subject have divided religions into three broad categories: world religions, a term which refers to transcultural, international faiths; Indigenous religions, which refers to smaller, culture-specific or nation-specific religious groups; and new religious movements, which refers to recently developed faiths. [5]
World religions is a category used in the study of religion to demarcate at least five—and in some cases more—religions that are deemed to have been especially large, internationally widespread, or influential in the development of Western society.
Many world religions are also organized religions, most definitively including the Abrahamic religions Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, while others are arguably less so, in particular folk religions, indigenous religions, and some Eastern religions. A portion of the world's population are members of new religious movements. [12]
Christianity is the predominant religion and faith in Europe, the Americas, the Philippines, East Timor, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Oceania. [11] There are also large Christian communities in other parts of the world, such as Indonesia, Central Asia, the Middle East, and West Africa where Christianity is the second-largest religion after Islam.