| Christians |
1,974,181,000 |
| Affiliated Christians |
1,863,791,000 |
| Roman Catholics |
1,044,236,000 |
| Protestants |
337,346,000 |
| Orthodox |
213,991,000 |
| Anglicans |
78,574,000 |
| Other Christians |
395,974,000 |
| Unaffiliated Christians |
110,390,000 |
| Non-Christians |
4,004,220,000 |
| Atheists |
149,723,000 |
| Baha'is |
6,932,000 |
| Buddhists |
356,270,000 |
| Chinese folk religionists |
381,632,000 |
| Confucianists |
6,253,000 |
| Ethnic religionists |
225,421,000 |
| Hindus |
799,028,000 |
| Jains |
4,151,000 |
| Jews |
14,313,000 |
| Mandeans |
38,000 |
| Muslims |
1,155,109,000 |
| New-Religionists |
101,406,000 |
| Shintoists |
2,778,000 |
| Sikhs |
22,837,000 |
| Spiritists |
12,184,000 |
| Zoroastrians |
2,486,000 |
| Other religionists |
1,019,000 |
| Non religious |
762,640,000 |
| Total Population |
5,978,401,000 |
|
Continents:
These follow corrent UN demographic terminology,
which now divides the world into the six major areas
shown above. See United Nations, World Population
Prospects: The 1996 Revision (New York: UN. 1998),
with populations of all continents, regions, and
countries covering the period 1950-2025. Note that
"Asia" now includes the former Soveit
Central Asian states and "Europe" includes
all ofkussia and extends eastward to Vladivostok,
the Sea of Japan and the Bering Strait.
Countries: The last column enumerates
sovereign and nonsovereign countries in which each
religion or religious grouping has a numerically
significant and organized following.
Adherents:
As defined and enumerated for each of the world's
countries in World Christian Encyclopedia (1982),
projected to mid-1999, adjusted for recent data.
Christians: Followers of Jesus
Christ affiliated with churches (church members,
including Children: 1,863,791,000) plus persons
professing in censuses or polls to be Christians
though not so affiliated. Figures for the subgroups
of Christians do not add up to the totals in the
first line because some Christians adhere to more
than mie denomination.
Other Christians: This term
in the above table denotes Catholics (non Roman)
marginal protestans, crypto Christians, and adherents
of African, Asian, Black and Latin-American indigenous
churches.
Atheists: Persons professing
atheism, skepticism, disbelief, or irreligion,
including antireligious (opposed to all religion).
Buddhists: 56% Mahayana, 38%
Theravada (Hinayana), 6% Tantrayana (La maism).
Chinese folk religionists: Followers
of traditional Chinese religion (local deities,
ancestor veneration, Confucian ethics, Taoism,
universism, divination, some Buddhist elements).
Confucianists: Non-Chinese followers
of Confucius and Confucianism, mostly Koreans
in Korea.
Ethnic religionists: Followers
of local, tribal, animistic, or shamanistic religions.
Hindus: 70% Vaishnavites, 25%
Shaivites, 2% neo-Hindus and reform Hindus.
Jews: Adherents of Judaism. For
detailed data on "Core" Jewish population,
see the annual "World Jewish Populations"
article in the American Jewish Committee's American
Jewish Year Book.
Muslims: 83% Sunnites, 16% Shutes,
1% other schools. Until 1990 the ethnic Muslims
in the former U.S.S.R. who had embraced communism
were not included as Muslims in this table. After
the collapse of communism in 1990-91, these ethnic
Muslims were once again enumerated as Muslims
ifthey had returned to Islamic profession and
practice.
New-Religionists: Followers of
Asian 20th century New Religions, New Religious
movements, radical new crisis religions, and non-Christian
syncretistic mass religions, all founded since
1800 and most since 1945.
Other religionists: Including
70 minor world religions and more than 10,000
national or local religions and a large number
of spiritist religions. New Age religions, quasi
religions, pseitdoreligions, parareligions, religious
or mystic systems, religious and semireligious
brotherhoods of numerous varieties.
Nonreligious. Persons professing no religion,
nonbelievers, agnostics; freethinkers, dereligionized
secularists indifferent to all religion.
Total population: UN medium van-ant
figurs for mid-1999, as given in World Population
Prospects: The 1998 Revision.
Courtsey:
Britannica Book of the
Year 2000 |
