page_title: Demography of Northern Ireland
section_title: Religion
hierarchical_section_title: Demography of Northern Ireland / Religion
caption_attribution_description: English: The percentage of respondents in each religious category of the census in Northern Ireland or the area that would later become Northern Ireland. Note that there was a high level of non-enumeration during the 1981 census mainly due to protests in Catholic areas about the Republican hunger strikes. [1]
context_page_description: Northern Ireland is the smallest of the four components
  of the United Kingdom in terms of both area and population, containing 2.9% of the total population and 5.7% of the total area of the United Kingdom. It is the smaller of the two political entities on the island of Ireland by area and population, the other being the Republic of Ireland, a sovereign state which gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1921. Northern Ireland contains 28.3% of the total population and 16.75% of the total area of the island of Ireland.
  Northern Ireland, as recorded by the 2011 United Kingdom census, has a population of 1,810,863, an increase of 125,800 over the ten-year period since the last census. The population density is 133 people per km², about half that of the United Kingdom as a whole but about twice that of the Republic. The Belfast Metropolitan Area dominates in population terms, with over a third of the inhabitants of Northern Ireland.
  Like Great Britain, Northern Ireland has a plurality of Protestants and its people speak both Irish and dialects of English heavily influenced by the Scots language.
context_section_description: The following table shows the religion stated by respondents to the 2001 and 2011 censuses.
  The religious affiliations in the districts of Northern Ireland at the time of the 2011 census were as follows. Note that these boundaries changed in 2015.
  Religions broken down by place of birth in the 2011 census.
  The religious affiliations in the different age bands in the 2011 census were as follows:
caption: The percentage of respondents in each religious category of the census in Northern Ireland or the area that would later become Northern Ireland. Note that there was a high level of non-enumeration during the 1981 census mainly due to protests in Catholic areas about the Republican hunger strikes.[23]
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