New Pew Report Reveals Statistics Show Christians are Often the Largest Group in the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Countries
Christians – who are, geographically, the most widely distributed of the groups in this analysis – are the largest religious group in religiously diverse countries and most likely to live in moderately diverse countries.
Singapore is the world’s most religiously diverse country as of 2020, according to a new Pew Research Center study. Buddhists (31%) are Singapore’s largest religious group, but its population also includes substantial shares of religiously unaffiliated people (20%), Christians (19%), Muslims (16%), Hindus (5%) and adherents of all other religions (9%).
France is the only European country on the top 10 list. Its population is largely Christian (46%) and religiously unaffiliated (43%), with a sizable Muslim minority (9%).
Among the most populous nations the U.S.A. emerges as the most religiously diverse nation.
The United States is not among the 10 most religiously diverse countries in the world (it ranks 32nd overall). But when looking just at the 10 most populous nations, the U.S. ranks first in religious diversity, followed by Nigeria, Russia, India and Brazil.
This analysis divides the world’s population into seven categories – Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, adherents of all other religions and people with no religious affiliation – and measures how evenly these groups are represented within each country or territory.1
The least religiously diverse places in the world, according to their analysis: Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia. In each, Muslims represent 99.8% or more of the population.
Two countries – Timor-Leste and Moldova – have populations that are almost entirely Christian.
Diversity in the world’s largest societies
If we focus just on the world’s 10 most populous countries, each of which is home to at least 120 million people, then the United States emerges as the most religiously diverse.
Christians make up an estimated 64% of the U.S. population as of 2020, while religiously unaffiliated people account for about 30%. The remaining 6% are Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and people in the “other religions” category, with each of these groups making up about 1% to 2%.2
Nigeria is the second-most religiously diverse of these big countries. Muslims and Christians, the largest groups in Nigeria, each make up more than 40% of the population. In fact, Nigeria is among the nations that are most evenly divided between two religious categories.
Pakistan, where Muslims account for 97% of all residents, is the least religiously diverse of the 10 most populous countries.
Where do countries fall on the diversity spectrum?
In addition to ranking countries based on their Religious Diversity Index score, we also grouped countries and world regions into five levels of diversity ranging from very high to very low.
Religious diversity by region
The Asia-Pacific region, with an overall RDI score of 8.7 and a very high level of diversity, is the most religiously diverse of the six regions in our analysis.
Three regions in this analysis have a high level of diversity: North America (with an RDI score of 6.0), sub-Saharan Africa (5.9) and Europe (5.6). In each of these regions, Christians make up a majority of the overall population. The second-largest group – the religiously unaffiliated in North America and Europe, and Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa – makes up a quarter or more.
The Latin America-Caribbean region falls in the moderate diversity category, with an RDI score of 3.1. The region has a large Christian majority and a modest share of unaffiliated people.
The Middle East-North Africa region, with an RDI score of 1.3 and a low level of diversity, is the least diverse of the regions we studied, with a population that is 94% Muslim. This region includes five of the world’s 10 least religiously diverse countries and territories: Yemen, Morocco, Western Sahara, Iraq and Tunisia.
Christians – who are, geographically, the most widely distributed of the groups in this analysis – are most likely to live in moderately diverse countries. However, many Christians also live in highly diverse places, such as the U.S., Nigeria and Ethiopia.
Religiously unaffiliated people mostly live in moderately diverse societies, such as China, which is home to two-thirds of the world’s unaffiliated population.
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