Buddhism , a Buddhist temple in
Adelaide, Australia. Buddhism is the
fastest-growing religion by percentage in Australia.
Buddhism is based on the teachings of
Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha, who was born in modern day
Nepal and lived and taught in India in the 5th century BC. The majority of Buddhists live in Asia; Europe and North America also have populations exceeding one million. According to scholars of religious demographics, there are between 488 million, 495 million, and 535 million Buddhists in the world. According to Johnson and Grim,
Buddhism has grown from a total of 138 million adherents in 1910, of which 137 million were in Asia, to 495 million in 2010, of which 487 million are in Asia. According to them, there was a fast annual growth of Buddhism in
Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia,
Lebanon and several Western European countries (1910–2010). More recently (2000–2010), the countries with highest growth rates are Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and some African countries. The
Australian Bureau of Statistics, through statistical analysis, held Buddhism to be the fastest-growing spiritual tradition in Australia in terms of percentage gain, with a growth of 79.1% for the period 1996 to 2001 (200,000→358,000). Buddhism is the majority religion in the following nine countries: Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Bhutan,
Mongolia, Japan and
Singapore. Special administrative areas in China are Buddhist majority areas such as
Macau,
Hong Kong and
Tibet.
Kalmykia is the only Buddhist majority region in Europe. It is an autonomous republic in Russia. According to a 2012 Pew Research Center survey, over the next four decades the number of
Buddhists around the world is expected to decrease from 487 million in 2010 to 486 million in 2050. The decline is due to several factors such as the low fertility level among Buddhists (1.6 children per woman), and the old age (median age of 34), compared to the overall population. According to the
Pew Research Center published on 2010, religious conversion may have little impact on the Buddhists population between 2010 and 2050; Buddhists are expected to lose 2.9 million adherents between 2010 and 2050. According to the same study Buddhists "are projected to decline in absolute number, dropping 7% from nearly 500 million in 2015 to 462 million in 2060. Low fertility rates and aging populations in countries such as China, Thailand and Japan are the main demographic reasons for the expected shrinkage in the Buddhist population in the years ahead". of which 173 million (13%) practice some form of Taoist-defined folk faith. This growth reverses the rapid decline that Chinese traditional religion faced in the 20th century. Moreover, Chinese religion has also spread throughout the world following the
emigration of Chinese populations, with 672,000 adherents in Canada as of 2010. According to scholars Miikka Ruokanen and Paulos Huang of
University of Helsinki, the rebirth of traditional religion in China is faster and larger than the spread of other religions in the country, such as Buddhism and Christianity: The number of adherents of the Chinese traditional religion is difficult to count, because of : The
Chinese folk religion is a "diffused religion" rather than "institutional". and 40,908 in
New Zealand (0.9% Sikh). Primarily for
socio-economic reasons (Sikhs being the wealthiest and most educated of India's
four major religious groups),
Indian Sikhs have the lowest adjusted growth rate of any major religious group in India, at 8.4% per decade (from 2001 to 2011), compared to the national rate of 17.7% per decade. Sikhs have the lowest fertility rate amongst India's four major religious groups, at 1.6 children per woman in 2019-20. The Sikh population has the lowest gender balance in India, with only 903 women per 1,000 men according to the 2011 Indian census, although the sex ratio at birth for Indian Sikhs has rapidly improved from 130 male births per 100 female births in 2001 to 110 male births per 100 female births in 2019-21, now only slightly above the average for India as a whole (108 male births per 100 female births). In contrast to the religion's slowing growth in India, Sikhism is the fastest growing religion in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Johnson and Barrett (2004) estimate that the global Sikh population increases annually by 392,633 (1.7% per year, based on 2004 figures); this percentage includes births, deaths, and conversions. The estimated world's Sikh population was over 30 million in 2020, and it will reach 42 million by 2050. It is expected to increase up to 62 million by 2100, given that the anticipated growth rate of 1.7% per year and adding at least 400,000 followers annually.
Wicca The American Religious Identification Survey gives
Wicca an average annual growth rate of 29.2% in the United States for the period 1990 to 2001 (from 8,000 to 134,000). Mary Jones says Wicca is one of the fastest-growing religions in the United States as well. Wicca, which is largely a "Pagan" religion primarily attracts followers of nature-based religions in, as an example, the Southeast Valley region of the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area.
Zoroastrianism place of worship) in
Mumbai: India has the largest number of Zoroastrians in the world.
Zoroastrianism was founded during the early
Persian Empire in the 6th century BCE by
Zarathustra. It served as the
state religion of the
ancient Iranian empires for more than a millennium, from around 600 BCE to 650 CE, but
declined from the 7th century onwards following the
Muslim conquest of Persia of 633–654. Zoroastrianism declined as
forced conversion increased with the rise of Islam. From the 10th century onwards, Zoroastrians emigrated to
Gujarat, India where they found asylum from unjust persecutions and since then are called Parsi, since Indians called Persia Faras and hence named them
Parsi. Recent estimates place the current number of Zoroastrians at around 110,000–120,000, at most with the majority living in India, Iran, and North America; their number has been thought to be declining. According to the
National Commission for Minorities, there are a "variety of causes that are responsible for this steady decline in the population of the community", the most significant of which were childlessness and migration. Demographic trends project that by the year 2020 the Parsis will number only 23,000. The Parsis will then cease to be called a community and will be labeled a '
tribe'. One-fifth of the decrease in population is attributed to migration. A slower birthrate than deathrate accounts for the rest: as of 2001, Parsis over the age of 60 make up for 31% of the community. Only 4.7% of the Parsi community are under 6 years of age, which translates to 7 births per year per 1,000 individuals. Concerns have been raised in recent years over the rapidly declining population of the Parsi community in India. There has been recent conversions of
Kurds from Islam to Zoroastrianism in
Kurdistan for different reasons, including a sense of national and/or ethnic identity or for recent conflicts with radical Muslims, which had been enthusiastically received by Zoroastrians worldwide. The number of Kurdish Zoroastrians, along with those of non-ethnic converts, has been estimated differently. The Zoroastrian Representative of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq has said that as many as 14,000 people in
Iraqi Kurdistan have converted to Zoroastrianism recently, with community leaders repeating this and speculating that even more Zoroastrians in the region are practicing their faith secretly. However, this has not been confirmed by independent sources. == Overall statistics ==