page_title: Baháʼí Faith
section_title: Demographics
hierarchical_section_title: Baháʼí Faith / Demographics
caption_attribution_description: English: Lotus Temple in New Delhi, India Русский: Храм Лотоса в Нью-Дели, Индия
context_page_description: The Baháʼí Faith is a religion teaching the essential worth of all religions, and the unity of all people. Established by Baháʼu'lláh in 1863, it initially grew in Persia and parts of the Middle East, where it has faced ongoing persecution since its inception. It is estimated to have between 5 and 8 million adherents, known as Baháʼís, spread throughout most of the world's countries and territories.
  The religion has three central figures: the Báb, considered a herald who taught that God would soon send a prophet in the same way of Jesus or Muhammad, and was executed by Iranian authorities in 1850; Baháʼu'lláh, who claimed to be that prophet in 1863 and faced exile and imprisonment for most of his life; and his son, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, who was released from confinement in 1908 and made teaching trips to Europe and America. Following ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's death in 1921, leadership of the religion fell to his grandson Shoghi Effendi.
context_section_description: A Baháʼí-published document reported 4.74 million Baháʼís in 1986 growing at a rate of 4.4%. Baháʼí sources since 1991 usually estimate the worldwide Baháʼí population to be above 5 million. The World Christian Encyclopedia estimated 7.1 million Baháʼís in the world in 2000, representing 218 countries, and 7.3 million in 2010 with the same source. They further state: "The Baha'i Faith is the only religion to have grown faster in every United Nations region over the past 100 years than the general population; Bahaʼi was thus the fastest-growing religion between 1910 and 2010, growing at least twice as fast as the population of almost every UN region." This source's only systematic flaw was to consistently have a higher estimate of Christians than other cross-national data sets.
  The Baháʼí Faith is currently the largest religious minority in Iran, Panama, Belize, and South Carolina; the second largest international religion in Bolivia, Zambia, and Papua New Guinea; and the third largest international religion in Chad and Kenya.
  According to The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2004:
  The majority of Baháʼís live in Asia (3.6 million), Africa (1.8 million), and Latin America (900,000). According to some estimates, the largest Baháʼí community in the world is in India, with 2.2 million Baháʼís, next is Iran, with 350,000, the US, with 150,000, and Brazil, with 60,000. Aside from these countries, numbers vary greatly. Currently, no country has a Baháʼí majority.
  The Baháʼí Faith is a medium-sized religion and was listed in The Britannica Book of the Year (1992–present) as the second most widespread of the world's independent religions in terms of the number of countries represented. According to Britannica, the Baháʼí Faith (as of 2010) is established in 221 countries and territories and has an estimated seven million adherents worldwide. Additionally, Baháʼís have self-organized in most of the nations of the world.
  The Baháʼí religion was ranked by the Foreign Policy magazine as the world's second fastest growing religion by percentage (1.7%) in 2007.
caption: The Lotus Temple, a Baháʼí House of Worship in New Delhi, India. It attracts an average of 4 million visitors a year.
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