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The world's major religions in one map
- aatharuv 8y agoThe map is pretty Abrahamo-centric. It separates out Judaism, but clumps Sikhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Shinto into "other", all of which certainly have many more adherents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions
- sitharus 8y agoIt also seems somewhat out of date, it shows New Zealand as being 60-ish% Christian, but as of the 2013 census it was 48%.
- godelski 8y agoIf you go to the source (see forkLding's comment) you can see the data is from 2010.
- sitharus 8y agoAh, thanks :)
- BigJono 8y agoThat's a huge drop for 3 years. I wonder what it is now? (presumably 2 censuses later).
- godelski 8y agoYeah this is actually super interesting to me. Calling it huge is an understatement. Looks like it wasn't over those 3 years though. But even from 2006 (I think the last census) there's still a 6.5% difference between 2006 and 2013 [0]. That's a pretty heavy rate of decline. Anyone got stats on how religion growth/decline rates are affected by economics and population size? I wonder if it is similar to how first world nations pretty much all have below a 2.0 population growth rate. Does the data suggest that as we become better off there's a correlation to less religion? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_New_Zealand#Religious_affiliation_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_New_Zealand#Religi...
- NamTaf 8y agoIt's high, but not really so, at least when not compared to the US (which appears steadfastly religious). For example, Australia [1] saw a 9% decline in Christian religions between 2011 and 2016, and a corresponding 7.8% increase in non-religious over the same period. France, to randomly choose another, shows a 15.9% drop in Christian religions between 2010 and 2016, and a 7.6% jump in non-religious over the same period. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Australia#Censuses'_data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Australia#Censuses... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_France#Demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_France#Demographic...
- godelski 8y agoOh wow that's interesting. Thanks for the comparisons. I'm now wondering why some of these countries are having quick declines in religion and the US isn't.
- burfog 8y agoThe US has had a huge decline in religion. Look at New York City in 1956, and try to imagine the same thing today. https://churchpop.com/2016/03/21/beautiful-way-nyc-commemorated-easter-1956/ https://churchpop.com/2016/03/21/beautiful-way-nyc-commemora...
- godelski 8y agoProbably because if you combine the Abrahamic trifecta you get 55.5%, whereas if you combine Sikhism, Taoism, etc, you get 11.8%. Judaism is probably only partitioned because of familiarity. Clumping the Abrahamic religions would make the map less interesting. Partitioning "other" could make the map too busy. There's always a balance between how refined of data do you make. Part of this is dependent upon your audience (note that most people that use the internet reside in a location that has a dominant Abrahamic following). This doesn't look like discrimination to me...
- compsciphd 8y agoI could be wrong, but is their any country where the majority religion is classified as other? Closest is China, but athiest/agnostic seems to take it there (and probably more so if you would subdivide them). The reason for Judaism is then because of Israel.
- godelski 8y agoYou could also probably subdivide Hinduism and the Islamic religions. But if we're talking subdivision it would make sense to me to first subdivide the largest group; ie Christianity. It is hard to say how to subdivide without becoming too busy. Maybe you could take countries with big populations and do a breakdown on their classifications. So specifically China and India, but maybe a few more. But that's not as visually appealing.
- Thorrez 8y agoTaiwan and Macao appear to be majority other.
- jacknews 8y agoIndeed, Judaism doesn't appear to be a "major religion" at all, by numbers
- ars 8y agoYup, which makes its outsized influence, on, well, everything, all the more astonishing. (World history, Sciences, Law, Hate Groups, etc.)
- zachguo 8y agoActually, the map is Abraham-centric in a way that it emphasizes the differentiation of Asian religions too much. Most of the Asian religions are blends of Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and a few local elements. Looking at the pattern of cultural clashes around the world, it seems the there are three incompatible belief systems, Christianity, Islam, and CBT.
- SubiculumCode 8y agoHinduism?
- talonx 8y ago>>Most of the Asian religions are blends of Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and a few local elements. Hinduism. I assume your miss was inadvertent.
- zachguo 8y agoIt's my mistake to think that Hinduism originates from Buddhism. However, core beliefs of both seem to be quite compatible with each other.
- aatharuv 8y agoI suspect a better way to have divied up at least China and Japan would have been "Mixture of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and Chinese folk religion" - China "Mixture of Buddhism and Shintoism" - Japan
- zachguo 8y agoShintoism is still pretty much a mixture of Taoism, Buddhism and some local myths. Anyway, I'm trying to merge them as much as possible instead of dividing them.
- gcb0 8y agoand more "importantly" (in terms of numbers) atheism/comunism vs falum gung/shen yun.
- forkLding 8y agoActual place where the data visualizations came from with better zoomed-up pictures instead of blurry ones in the link: http://www.carrieosgood.com/dataviz/world-population.html http://www.carrieosgood.com/dataviz/world-population.html
- godelski 8y agoThanks. I couldn't find a link on the posted website. Which I always hate, especially when they don't embed the high-res images.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y agoThanks for that link. The data on population distribution reminded me of another factoid that was popular a couple years ago, the "more people live in this circle than outside it": https://www.cntraveler.com/story/more-than-half-the-worlds-population-lives-inside-this-circle https://www.cntraveler.com/story/more-than-half-the-worlds-p... . Basically, there are more people living in a circle that encompasses India and China (and hence lots of other populous parts of Asia like Indonesia) than there are in North America, South America, Europe, Africa and Australia combined.
- Simple_Guy 8y agothat doesn't seem surprising tbh. given the 80/20 rule (or whatever statistical distribution governs this case).
- kgwxd 8y agoThis is a map of the religion people feel obligated to say they are when asked by someone they don't trust.
- xeromal 8y ago8edgy16me