How much christians are in the world

Christians are also geographically widespread — so far-flung, in fact, that no single continent or region can indisputably claim to be the center of global Christianity. A century ago, this was not the case. The number of Christians around the world has nearly quadrupled in the last years, from about million in to more than 2 billion in This apparent stability, however, masks a momentous shift. At the same time, Christianity has grown enormously in sub-Saharan Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, where there were relatively few Christians at the beginning of the 20th century.

Christianity today — unlike a century ago — is truly a global faith. See world maps weighted by Christian population in and The study is based primarily on a country-by-country analysis of about 2, data sources, including censuses and nationally representative population surveys. Christians are diverse theologically as well as geographically, the new study finds. About half are Catholic.

See Defining Christian Traditions. Clearly, Christianity has spread far from its historical origins. For example:. The first is "folk religions", which collects traditional African religions, Chinese folk religions, and both Native American and Australian aboriginal religions.

The second is "other religions", a catch-all that tracks smaller faiths such as Shintoism, Taoism, Sikhism, and Jainism. Finally, a significant number of people—nearly 1. The world's largest religion is Christianity, which is practiced by almost 2. Christianity is divided into Eastern and Western theology, and within those divisions, many branches , including Catholicism, Protestantism, and Eastern Orthodoxy.

Those branches further divide into the thousands of various denominations known today, including Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Seventh-Day Adventists, Mormons, Amish, and more. Islam is the world's second-largest religion. People that practice Islam are known as Muslims. There are 50 Muslim-majority countries worldwide.

Hinduism is the third-largest religion globally. Hinduism is considered dharma, or way of life. It originated on the Indian subcontinent and is widely practiced throughout Southeast Asia. The four main denominations are Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism.

Liu, Joseph. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. Between and , an estimated million babies were born to Christian mothers and roughly million Christians died — a natural increase of million.

But among Christians in Europe the reverse is true: Deaths outnumbered births by nearly 6 million during this brief period. In Germany alone, there were an estimated 1. In fact, Muslims and the unaffiliated in Europe both experienced natural increases in their populations, with our new report estimating that there were over 2 million and 1 million more births than deaths, respectively, between and Globally, Muslims make up the second largest religious group, with 1.

Muslims experienced the greatest natural increase among all religious groups, including Christians. Births to Muslims between and outnumbered deaths by million million births vs. Globally, all major groups had more births than deaths. Not all babies will remain in the religion of their mother, of course.

In some countries, including the United States, it is fairly common for adults to leave their childhood religion and switch to another faith or no faith. Globally, however, the effect of religious switching is overshadowed by the impact of differences in fertility and mortality.