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Research guide

Global Religious Demographics

How many people were counted in each faith and branch in the studies cited here, how those numbers moved between 2010 and 2020, where the world's Christians live, and how the United States compares. Every figure names its source and what it counts.

People from different communities studying a globe together, with places of worship across the landscape.

The world in 2020

Of the roughly 7.9 billion people alive in 2020, Pew Research Center estimates that 2.3 billion identified as Christian, 2.0 billion as Muslim and 1.9 billion with no religious affiliation. Hindus numbered 1.2 billion, Buddhists 324 million, adherents of all other religions together 172 million, and Jews 14.8 million1. The study synthesizes more than 2,700 censuses, surveys and population registers from 201 countries and territories, primarily measures religious identification, rather than practice or belief. Some estimates use population registers or other definitions, including the Jewish estimates discussed below.

2.3 bnChristians in 2020, the world's largest religious group1
28.8%of the world's population, down from 30.6% in 20101
120countries and territories with a Christian majority, down from 1241
24.2%of the world has no religious affiliation, more than any single religion except Christianity and Islam1
If the world were 100 peoplePew, 2020
  • 29 Christians all Christian traditions combined
  • 26 Muslims
  • 24 religiously unaffiliated atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular
  • 15 Hindus
  • 4 Buddhists
  • 2 other religions folk religions, Sikhs, Baha'is, Jains and more

Whole numbers from Pew's 2020 shares1. Christians are shown as one group, as in this study. The separate historical chart below shows Pew's 2010 breakdown by Christian tradition. Jewish people are about 0.2 of the 100, roughly one person in every 500, too few to show as a whole dot; they have their own section below.

Explore the full global figures
The world's religious groups in 2020, with Pew's global counts1. World total is the sum of Pew's Christian and non-Christian counts. These are rounded estimates, not exact headcounts.
GroupPeople, 2020Share of worldMajority in
Christians2,268,860,00028.8%120 countries and territories; every region except Asia-Pacific and the Middle East-North Africa
Muslims2,022,590,00025.6%the Middle East-North Africa region (94%); about eight in ten Muslims live where they are the majority
Religiously unaffiliated1,905,360,00024.2%ten countries and territories, up from seven in 2010; most unaffiliated people live in the Asia-Pacific region
Hindus1,177,860,00014.9%India and Nepal
Buddhists324,190,0004.1%seven countries, including Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar
Other religions172,170,0002.2%none; Baha'is, Daoists, Jains, Sikhs, folk religions and many others combined
Jews14,780,0000.2%Israel
World7,885,810,000100%

A decade of change, 2010 to 2020

Pew's 2025 report compares revised estimates for 2010 with estimates for 2020 across 201 countries and territories. Its headline: the world grew by about 12%, Muslims grew by 21% and the religiously unaffiliated by 16%, while Christians grew by 6% and Buddhists shrank1. Two categories gained share of the world's population, Muslims and the unaffiliated. Christians and Buddhists lost share. Hindus, Jews and the other religions held steady.

  1. Christians 2.15 billion to 2.27 billion, +5.7%30.6%28.8%
  2. Muslims 1.68 billion to 2.02 billion, +20.7%23.9%25.6%
  3. Religiously unaffiliated 1.64 billion to 1.91 billion, +16.5%23.3%24.2%
  4. Hindus 1.05 billion to 1.18 billion, +12.0%15.0%14.9%
  5. Buddhists 343 million to 324 million, −5.4%4.9%4.1%
  6. Other religions 154 million to 172 million, +11.7%2.2%2.2%
  7. Jews 13.9 million to 14.8 million, +6.2%0.2%0.2%
20102020share of the world's population, one scale

Counts and shares from Pew Research Center1. Bars are drawn on one scale with 35% as the full width. Muslims added 347 million people, more than all other religions combined; the unaffiliated added 270 million; Christians added 122 million.

Why the Christian share fell while the count rose

Three forces pull in different directions. Births and deaths favour Christianity in Africa, where fertility is high, and work against it in Europe, where Christians are older than the population as a whole. Migration moves people between regions without changing the world total. Religious switching is the third force, and here Pew's measurement is unusually direct: in 117 countries and territories it compared the religion adults aged 18 to 54 were raised in with the one they hold now. These surveys were conducted between 2008 and 2024; the results describe changes since childhood, not switching exclusively during 2010–2020. For every adult who joined a religion after being raised without one, 3.2 went the other way. Christians had the largest net loss, with 3.1 people leaving for every one joining; most former Christians now identify with no religion1.

The result shows in the map. Christians remained a majority in 120 countries and territories in 2020, four fewer than in 2010. The United Kingdom (49%), Australia (47%), France (46.5%) and Uruguay (44.5%) all dropped below half, and in each of them the religiously unaffiliated now account for 40% or more of the population1. Christians shrank as a share of the population in 40 of the 41 countries where their share moved by five points or more, most of them in the Americas and Europe1.

Christianity by tradition

Pew's 2025 report on the population in 2020 counts Christians as one group. The historical breakdown used here comes from its report published in 2011, using 2010 data, which put the Christian world at about half Catholic, over a third Protestant and one in eight Orthodox2. These proportions describe 2010 and should not be treated as a measured breakdown of Christians in 2020 or today.

Historical estimate
If the world's Christians were 100 peoplePew, 2010 data; published 2011
  • 50 Catholic
  • 37 Protestant Anglicans, Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Pentecostals, Reformed, independents and more
  • 12 Orthodox Eastern and Oriental
  • 1 other Latter-day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists

Pew's estimate of 2.18 billion Christians in 2010, published in 20112. The Catholic Church's statistical yearbook reports 1.406 billion baptized Catholics for 20238; the World Council of Churches cites a separate, undated estimate of 588 million Pentecostal, charismatic and neo-charismatic Christians across multiple church traditions9.

Selected churches, communions and populations

Bars are to one scale, so the Catholic Church's bar is the full width and the Amish, at four hundred thousand, are a hairline. These figures describe individual churches, church families, overlapping movements and a religious population. Their dates and counting rules differ. They are not a ranking of comparable denominations and must not be added together.

  1. Catholic Church1.41 billion8Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae 2023, reported in 2025; baptized Catholics
  2. Pentecostal and charismatic Christians588 million9World Christian Database, cited by the World Council of Churches; estimate year not stated; overlaps with other church categories
  3. Eastern Orthodox churches300 million9churches' own estimate as cited by the World Council of Churches; estimate year not stated
  4. World Communion of Reformed Churches100 million10people represented by its member churches; not all Reformed Christians worldwide
  5. Anglican Communionabout 85 million15Anglican Communion Office, 2015 Q&A; an approximate historical estimate with varying membership definitions
  6. World Methodist Councilover 80 million10people represented by its member churches, including related United and Uniting churches
  7. Lutheran World Federationover 78 million10people represented by its member churches; not all Lutherans worldwide
  8. Oriental Orthodox churches60 million9World Council of Churches estimate; year not stated
  9. Baptist World Alliance53 million10its member bodies; does not represent every Baptist church worldwide
  10. Seventh-day Adventist Church23.7 million1323,684,237 members at December 31, 2024, reported by the church
  11. Latter-day Saints17.9 million12the church's membership records at December 31, 2025
  12. Jewish people worldwide14.8 million1Pew Research Center, 2020; religious identification with register and other definitional exceptions
  13. Jehovah's Witnesses9.2 million11active preachers in the 2025 service year, the church's own measure
  14. Amishabout 400,00014Young Center, June 2024; 400,910 adults and children in North America

Counting baptized members, recorded members or active preachers produces different measures. Jehovah's Witnesses include qualifying unbaptized preachers, so their figure is not restricted to baptized members or adults. Read each figure with its definition and date. For what each of these traditions believes and how it worships, see the denomination pages.

Where Christians live

The most striking demographic fact about Christianity is how far its centre of gravity has moved. In 1900 roughly seven in ten affiliated Christians lived in Europe. By 2020 Europe held less than a quarter, and sub-Saharan Africa held the largest share in Pew's regional estimates. The historical series below places 1.6% of affiliated Christians in Africa as a whole in 1900. Two independent sources show the same movement over different spans, and they are kept apart below because their definitions differ.

The decade, measured by Pew

Between 2010 and 2020 sub-Saharan Africa surpassed Europe as the region with the most Christians. Pew attributes the change to much higher rates of natural increase in Africa than in Europe, and to widespread disaffiliation in Western Europe1. Europe had the largest decline in the number of Christians, about 48 million. North America lost about 29 million and had the larger proportional decline, 11% compared with Europe's 9%.

  1. Sub-Saharan Africa 532 million to 697 million, +31%24.8%30.7%
  2. Latin America and the Caribbean 530 million to 547 million, +3%24.7%24.1%
  3. Europe 554 million to 505 million, −9%25.8%22.3%
  4. Asia-Pacific 253 million to 269 million, +6%11.8%11.8%
  5. North America 266 million to 238 million, −11%12.4%10.5%
  6. Middle East and North Africa 11.8 million to 12.9 million, +9%0.5%0.6%
20102020share of the world's Christians

Pew Research Center1. Bars share one scale with 35% as the full width. North America here means the United States and Canada; Mexico is counted with Latin America and the Caribbean.

The century, reconstructed by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity

For the longer view, the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary publishes reconstructions back to 1900, drawing on the World Christian Database7. These are historical estimates, not census observations from one continuous instrument, and they count affiliated Christians, a narrower category than the Center's broader Christian total. The shares below are BibleVerse calculations: each continent's count divided by the affiliated total for that year.

Where affiliated Christians lived, 1900 to 2020

Share of all affiliated Christians by continent, in the Center's continental groupings. Rounded to one decimal; rows may not total exactly 100.

  1. 1900522 million affiliated Christians
    1.6% Africa4.0% Asia70.6% Europe11.5% Latin America11.5% Northern America0.8% Oceania
  2. 19701.11 billion
    10.1% Africa8.1% Asia41.9% Europe23.6% Latin America14.9% Northern America1.3% Oceania
  3. 20001.89 billion
    19.2% Africa14.6% Asia28.8% Europe25.4% Latin America10.8% Northern America1.1% Oceania
  4. mid-20202.41 billion
    26.6% Africa15.5% Asia22.6% Europe25.1% Latin America9.1% Northern America1.0% Oceania
AfricaAsiaEuropeLatin AmericaNorthern AmericaOceania

Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Status of Global Christianity 2020, line 27 for affiliated Christians and lines 43 to 48 for the continental counts7. Do not read the Center's series and Pew's as one line: they define Christian, region and year differently, and their 2020 totals differ by about 140 million for that reason. The chart shows a change in distribution, not a migration of Christians from one continent to another; population growth, conversion, disaffiliation, migration and measurement each contribute, and the chart alone cannot say how much.

The countries with the most Christians

Ten countries hold nearly half of the world's Christians, and the list shows the redistribution in miniature: four of the ten are in sub-Saharan Africa, two in Latin America and the Caribbean, two in Europe, one in North America and one in Asia-Pacific1.

  1. United States217.3 million64.0% of the country, 9.6% of the world's Christians
  2. Brazil168.3 million80.7% of the country, 7.4% of the world's Christians
  3. Mexico113.1 million89.2% of the country, 5.0% of the world's Christians
  4. Philippines102.5 million91.5% of the country, 4.5% of the world's Christians
  5. Russia102.4 million69.9% of the country, 4.5% of the world's Christians
  6. Nigeria92.8 million43.4% of the country, 4.1% of the world's Christians
  7. Democratic Republic of the Congo92.4 million96.3% of the country, 4.1% of the world's Christians
  8. Ethiopia73.2 million61.6% of the country, 3.2% of the world's Christians
  9. South Africa51.6 million85.3% of the country, 2.3% of the world's Christians
  10. Italy48.2 million80.5% of the country, 2.1% of the world's Christians

Pew Research Center, 2020 estimates1. These ten countries together hold 1.06 billion Christians, 46.8% of the world total. Pew notes that Nigeria is now estimated to have had a Muslim majority in 2010 rather than a Christian plurality, after a revision of its sources.

The regions in 2020, and how they moved

Pew groups its 201 countries and territories into six regions. Christians are the majority in four of them, Muslims in one, and no group holds a majority in the Asia-Pacific region, where a third of people are religiously unaffiliated and a quarter each are Muslim or Hindu6.

Religious affiliation across world regions

Share of each region's total population in 2020. “Other” combines Pew's smaller displayed categories for readability. Values are rounded independently and may total 99 or 101; the sub-Saharan Africa bar is normalized to 100% of the chart width.6

  1. Asia-Pacificabout 4.5 billion
    33% unaffiliated26% Muslim26% Hindu7% Buddhist6% Christian2% other
  2. Europeabout 753 million
    67% Christian25% unaffiliated6% Muslimabout 2% other
  3. Latin America and the Caribbeanabout 646 million
    85% Christian12% unaffiliated3% other religions
  4. Middle East and North Africaabout 440 million
    94% Muslim3% Christianunder 2% Jewishabout 1% other or unaffiliated
  5. North Americaabout 378 million
    63% Christian30% unaffiliatedabout 7% other religions
  6. Sub-Saharan Africaabout 1.1 billion
    62% Christian33% Muslimabout 3% unaffiliatedabout 3% other religions
ChristianMuslimHinduBuddhistJewishUnaffiliatedOther religions

Where the balance shifted most

In three regions the Christian share of the population fell by five points or more over the decade while the unaffiliated share rose. The movements are shown side by side because they are the clearest region-wide changes Pew reports in these two categories, not because one explains the other: opposite movements do not establish that every person who stopped identifying as Christian became unaffiliated, and regional averages conceal wide variation among countries1.

Compare the full regional figures
Share of each region's population, 2010 and 2020, Pew Research Center1. Rounded, so changes computed from the displayed values may differ slightly from Pew's unrounded differences.
RegionChristian, 2010Christian, 2020ChangeUnaffiliated, 2010Unaffiliated, 2020Change
North America77%63%−14 points17%30%+13 points
Europe75%67%−8 points19%25%+7 points
Latin America and the Caribbean90%85%−5.5 points8%12%+4 points
Sub-Saharan Africa62%62%+0.3 points3%3%−0.5 points
Asia-Pacific6%6%−0.2 points33%33%−0.2 points
Middle East and North Africa3%3%−0.4 points0.4%0.4%no change

Europe's Christian population fell from 74.6% to 67.1% of the region and its unaffiliated population rose from 18.7% to 25.3%. In Latin America and the Caribbean the number of unaffiliated people grew by two thirds, from 46 million to 77 million, though they remain one person in eight. Sub-Saharan Africa was the only region where Christians grew as a share of the population, by less than a point1.

The United States

Pew's Religious Landscape Study has surveyed American adults three times, in 2007, 2014 and 2023-24, the last of them with 36,908 respondents4. Across those surveys the Christian share of adults fell from 78% to 71% to 62%, and the religiously unaffiliated rose from 16% to 23% to 29%. The 2025 report's headline is that the decline has slowed and may have levelled off: between 2019 and 2024 the Christian share hovered between 60% and 64%, and the unaffiliated share showed signs of leveling off during that period3,4.

Pew Research Center, Religious Landscape Studies of 2007, 2014 and 2023-244. Bars share one scale, with 100% as the full width.

If American adults were 100 peoplePew, 2023-24
  • 40 Protestant 23 evangelical, 11 mainline, 5 in historically Black churches
  • 19 Catholic
  • 3 other Christian Latter-day Saints, Orthodox, Jehovah's Witnesses
  • 29 religiously unaffiliated 5 atheist, 6 agnostic, 19 nothing in particular
  • 2 Jewish
  • 5 other faiths Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and others, about one each
  • 2 did not say

Pew's 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study3. Since 2007, evangelical Protestants have gone from 26 of the 100 to 23, mainline Protestants from 18 to 11, and members of historically Black Protestant churches from 7 to 5. Age divides the country sharply: 46% of adults aged 18 to 24 identify as Christian, against 80% of those 74 and older3,4.

Pew's global study measures the same shift from another angle. Among American adults aged 18 to 54, 76% were raised Christian and 54% identify as Christian now, while 17% were raised with no religion and 38% have none now1. Which Bible each of these communities reads is the subject of the versions by denomination guide.

The Jewish population

Pew counts 14.8 million Jews in 2020, up by just under a million from 13.9 million in 2010, and about 0.2% of the world1. Pew uses religious self-identification where available, but the definition is not uniform worldwide. Its Israel estimate uses a population register based on Jewish religious legal criteria; some other countries use “core Jewish population” estimates that also include Jews without a religious affiliation. In the United States, this global study counts Jews by religion, a narrower definition than the Jewish American survey below. These differences matter when comparing totals.1

The regional balance changed during the decade. In 2010 North America was home to more Jews than any other region; by 2020, 45.9% lived in the Middle East and North Africa, nearly all of them in Israel, and 41.2% in North America. Pew attributes the shift primarily to Israel's Jewish population growing from 5.8 million to 6.8 million through natural increase and migration1.

If the world's Jewish people were 100Pew, 2020
  • 46 in the Middle East and North Africa nearly all of them in Israel
  • 41 in North America nearly all in the United States
  • 13 elsewhere Europe, Latin America, Australia, the former Soviet Union

Regional distribution of Pew's 14.8 million estimated Jews; definitions vary by country as explained above1.

If American Jewish adults were 100 peoplePew, 2020
  • 37 Reform
  • 17 Conservative
  • 9 Orthodox including Hasidic and Modern Orthodox
  • 32 no particular branch
  • 4 another branch Reconstructionist, Humanistic, and others
  • 1 did not say

Pew's 2020 survey of 4,718 Jewish adults5. This survey includes Jews by religion and Jews of no religion who meet its Jewish background and identity criteria. It uses a broader definition than the U.S. estimate in Pew's global study. About two thirds identify with the three largest movements; about a third identify with no particular branch. Explore these movements in the community profiles.

Method and sources

Three kinds of number appear on this page, and they are kept apart. Pew's population estimates primarily measure religious identification, with some register-based and other exceptions. Institutional counts (a church's yearbook, a communion's membership total) follow each body's own rules and are labeled by source. The selected-populations chart includes overlapping categories and is not an additive breakdown. Historical reconstructions (the Center for the Study of Global Christianity) estimate the past from many sources and are shown on their own scale.

The 2010-to-2020 comparisons use Pew's revised 2010 estimates published in 2025. The separate Christian-tradition chart uses the older 2010 breakdown published in 2011. Where this page computes anything itself (the world total in section 01, the sum of the WCC movement categories in section 03, the continental shares in section 04), it says so. Percentages are rounded; small differences between a rounded change and Pew's unrounded one are expected. No future projections are shown. The historical source's mid-2020 figures were published in January 2020, rather than measured retrospectively at the end of that year.

To cite a figure elsewhere, cite the source beside it rather than this page, and carry its definition with the number. Corrections are welcome through the contact page.

Sources
  1. Pew Research Center, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020, 9 June 2025, and the full report: global and regional counts and shares for 2010 and 2020 (chapters 2 to 8; regional composition in Appendix B, p. 180), the regional distribution of Christians and Jews (including Jewish-definition exceptions), the countries with the most Christians, Christian-majority countries, and religious switching among adults aged 18 to 54 in 117 countries and territories, based on switching surveys from 2008–2024 rather than a count confined to 2010–2020. The study draws on more than 2,700 censuses, surveys and population registers for 201 countries and territories.
  2. Pew Research Center, Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Christian Population, 19 December 2011, estimating the population in 2010: about 50% Catholic, 37% Protestant, 12% Orthodox, 1% other, of 2.18 billion Christians in 2010.
  3. Pew Research Center, 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study: executive summary, 26 February 2025: 62% of United States adults Christian (40% Protestant, 19% Catholic, 3% other), 29% religiously unaffiliated (5% atheist, 6% agnostic, 19% nothing in particular), 7% other religions; evangelical, mainline and historically Black Protestant shares in 2007 and 2023-24.
  4. Pew Research Center, Decline of Christianity in the U.S. Has Slowed, May Have Leveled Off, 26 February 2025: 78% Christian in 2007, 71% in 2014, 62% in 2023-24; 16%, 23% and 29% unaffiliated; 36,908 respondents; the Christian share between 60% and 64% from 2019 to 2024; 46% of adults aged 18 to 24 and 80% of those 74 and older identify as Christian.
  5. Pew Research Center, Jewish Americans in 2020, 11 May 2021: 37% Reform, 17% Conservative, 9% Orthodox, 32% no particular branch, from a survey of 4,718 Jewish adults.
  6. Pew Research Center, regional chapters of the 2025 report, including Religion in North America (378 million residents, 63% Christian, 30% unaffiliated), and the accompanying religious-composition data for the Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America-Caribbean, Middle East-North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa regions. The dataset was updated on 12 February 2026 to add religious-diversity measures; its population reference years remain 2010 and 2020.
  7. Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Status of Global Christianity, 2020, in the Context of 1900-2050: line 27 (affiliated Christians: 522,440,000 in 1900; 1,112,655,000 in 1970; 1,889,808,000 in 2000; 2,406,184,000 in mid-2020) and lines 43 to 48 (continental counts), attributed to the World Christian Database. Continental shares on this page are BibleVerse calculations from those counts.
  8. Vatican News, New Church statistics reveal growing Catholic population, fewer pastoral workers, March 2025, reporting the Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae 2023 alongside the Annuario Pontificio 2025: 1.406 billion Catholics at the end of 2023.
  9. World Council of Churches, church-family summaries (estimate years not stated): Pentecostal churches (78 million classical Pentecostals, 192 million charismatics and 318 million neo-charismatics, from the World Christian Database), Orthodox churches (Eastern) (300 million by the churches' own count) and Orthodox churches (Oriental) (some 60 million).
  10. The world communions' own figures: Lutheran World Federation (over 78 million in 99 countries), World Methodist Council (over 80 million in 138 countries), World Communion of Reformed Churches (100 million in 109 countries), Baptist World Alliance (53 million in 138 countries and territories).
  11. Jehovah's Witnesses, How Many of Jehovah's Witnesses Are There Worldwide?: 9,205,326 in the 2025 service year, counting those who preach each month.
  12. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Facts and Statistics: 17,887,212 members at December 31, 2025.
  13. Seventh-day Adventist Church, Office of Archives, Statistics and Research, Seventh-day Adventist World Church Statistics 2024: 23,684,237 members at December 31, 2024, rounded to 23.7 million here.
  14. Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Elizabethtown College, Amish Population Profile, 2024: 400,910 adults and children in North America in June 2024.
  15. Anglican Communion Office, Anglican Communion Q&A, 2015, p. 1: around 85 million, based on member-church figures, World Council of Churches figures and the Atlas of Global Christianity. The source cautions that counting methods differ; this is a historical estimate.

Questions people ask

How many Christians are there in the world?

About 2.3 billion in 2020, or 28.8% of the world's population, according to Pew Research Center's 2025 study of more than 2,700 censuses and surveys1. Christians are the largest religious group and a majority in 120 countries and territories. Their number grew by about 122 million over the decade, but the rest of the world grew faster, so their share fell from 30.6% in 2010.

Which religion is growing fastest?

Among the broad religious groups Pew studied, Islam grew fastest from 2010 to 2020, both proportionally and in the number of people added. Pew estimates the number of Muslims grew by 347 million between 2010 and 2020, from 1.7 billion to 2.0 billion, more than all other religions combined, and their share of the world rose from 23.9% to 25.6%1. The religiously unaffiliated were the only other category to grow as a share of the world, from 23.3% to 24.2%.

Is Christianity declining?

It depends on the measure. The number of Christians rose from 2.15 billion in 2010 to 2.27 billion in 2020, so the count grew over that decade. Its share of the world fell 1.8 points because non-Christians grew faster. Separately, Pew's surveys from 2008–2024 found that among adults aged 18 to 54 in 117 places, 3.1 people had left Christianity for every one who had joined1. Growth is concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa; decline in share is concentrated in Europe and North America.

Where do most Christians live?

Sub-Saharan Africa passed Europe during the 2010s and held 30.7% of the world's Christians in 2020, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (24.1%), Europe (22.3%), the Asia-Pacific region (11.8%) and North America (10.5%)1. In the 2020 estimates, the United States had more Christians than any single country (217 million), followed by Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines and Russia.

What share of Americans are Christian?

62% of United States adults in Pew Research Center's 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study, down from 78% in 2007 and 71% in 2014, while the religiously unaffiliated rose from 16% to 29%4. Pew's 2025 report found that the Christian share was relatively stable, between 60% and 64%, from 2019 to 2024. Among adults aged 18 to 24, 46% identify as Christian; among those 74 and older, 80% do.

Why do a church's own membership figures differ from survey estimates?

They count different things. Surveys and censuses record how people describe themselves. Religious bodies count members by their own rules: the Catholic Church counts the baptized8, Jehovah's Witnesses count people who preach each month11, Latter-day Saints count members on their records12. Counting all recorded members and counting active preachers measure different things, so this page names the counter beside every figure and never adds figures from different counters together.