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Hinduism
Hinduism is the world’s third largest religion, with over 950 million Hindus worldwide. Almost all live in South Asia, with the majority in India, where over 80% of people are Hindu.
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Buddhists make up nearly 6 percent of the world’s population. More than 98 percent live in South-East Asia, where new political freedoms in many countries have witnessed a growth of Buddhist practice and monasticism, particularly since the 1990s. In Cambodia, for example, only 3,000 monks were thought to have survived the civil war and its ensuing genocide. By 2006 the number of monks and pagodas had returned to pre-war levels of 1969–70. However, Buddhist activities are monitored or restricted in other countries, such as North Korea, China and Burma. Outside Asia, there has been a considerable growth in Buddhism, with more than 3 million Buddhists in the USA, over 1.5 million in Europe and almost 700,000 in Latin America. Within the three major traditions or branches of Buddhism there are hundreds of smaller organizations and groups, including the English Sangha Trust, with 10,000 supporters; the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, with 800,000 members, and Pure Land Buddhism in Japan, with 19.5 million members.
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Buddhism
More than half the world’s population live in countries where Buddhism is now, or has been, dominant. During the 20th century, Buddhism was subject to greater suppression than at any time in its history.
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Since the 1980s, Jewish population trends have been affected by major socioeconomic and geopolitical changes: the break-up of the Soviet Union, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the reunification of Germany, the expansion of the European Union, instability in some Latin American countries and continuing tensions in the Middle East. As a result, 80 percent of the world’s Jews now live in the USA and Israel. The ‘core’ Jewish populations illustrated on this map include those who, when asked, identified themselves as Jews, or were identified by someone in the same household as Jews. This definition reflects subjective feelings and overlaps, but does not always coincide with, definitions of rabbinic law – Halakah. Jewish population studies also recognize the ‘enlarged’ Jewish population: this includes the ‘core’ population, all others of Jewish parentage who are not currently Jewish, and the non-Jewish members of their households. In the state of Israel, however, individual status is subject to Ministry of Interior rulings that follow criteria established by rabbinical authorities. The ‘core’ Jewish population in Israel is not based on personal subjective identification but reflects the legal rules of Halakah.
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Judaism
There are over 13 million Jews worldwide, more than 5 million of whom live in Israel.
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The Sikh faith began in the Punjab region of India in the 15th century under the teachings of Guru Nanak. The Punjab remains the heartland of the Sikh religion, with up to 16 million Sikhs living in this state. The largest Sikh populations outside India are in the USA, UK and Canada, and were originally established through links with British rule in India during the British Empire. Canada’s first gurdwara opened in 1908 in Vancouver, the UK’s in London in 1911, and the USA’s in 1912 in California. The 2001 British Census asked the population to voluntarily state their religion and 336,179 Sikhs in the UK were recorded. The Canadian Census of the same year asked for religious affiliation and recorded 278,400 Sikhs. In contrast, the US Bureau of Census is prohibited by law from asking this question. However, an independent Religions Congregations Membership Study (RCMS) is planning a major survey of religious populations in 2010 that will include a county-by-county statistic of the Sikh population in the USA. This development is welcomed by the World Sikh Council’s America Region, which estimates that around 500,000 Sikhs are living in the USA.
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Sikhism
There are 24 million Sikhs worldwide. Over 90% live in India, mainly in the Punjab.
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The terms ‘traditional’ and ‘indigenous’ distinguish those cultures and belief systems that are not part of a major world religion. While they often share key features, such as reverence for nature and veneration of ancestors, they do not adhere to any central tenets. Many belief systems – such as Australian aboriginal traditions – have been part of the same geographic setting for thousands of years. Some have travelled and been shaped by what is loosely called Shamanism, thought to have originated in Siberia and to have migrated with movement of peoples into the Americas. The indigenous religion of China, which fuses Daoism, Buddhism, folk religion and Confucianism, is the majority religious practice of the country. In Japan, Shinto rites are widely practised, and even though an individual may profess a different ‘personal’ religion, Shintoism is often the ‘family’ religion. Traditional religion is still widely practised throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. In the Caribbean and Latin America there are more than 3 million adherents of indigenous religions, from the 14,000 strong Huichol community in northern Mexico to the native peoples of the Amazon basin.
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Traditional Beliefs
There are more than 250 million adherents of traditional beliefs worldwide, excluding the indigenous religions of China and Japan. There are also many who belong to a major world religion while continuing to hold traditional local beliefs.
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The Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination in the world, with over 1 billion baptized members. While the number of priests worldwide and in Latin America remains steady,