page_title: Southeast Asia
section_title: Religion
hierarchical_section_title: Southeast Asia / Demographics / Religion
caption_attribution_description: English: Penang, Malaysia: Kek Lok Si Temple
context_page_description: Southeast Asia or Southeastern Asia is the southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are geographically south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent and north-west of Australia. Southeast Asia is bordered to the north by East Asia, to the west by South Asia and the Bay of Bengal, to the east by Oceania and the Pacific Ocean, and to the south by Australia and the Indian Ocean. The region is the only part of Asia that lies partly within the Southern Hemisphere, although the majority of it is in the Northern Hemisphere. In contemporary definition, Southeast Asia consists of two geographic regions:
  Mainland Southeast Asia, also known historically as Indochina, comprising Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
  Maritime Southeast Asia, also known historically as Nusantara, the East Indies, or the Malay Archipelago, comprising the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Ashmore and Cartier Islands, Brunei, Christmas Island, the Cocos Islands, East Malaysia, East Timor, Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore.
  The region lies near the intersection of geological plates, with both heavy seismic and volcanic activities.
context_section_description: Countries in Southeast Asia practice many different religions. By population, Islam is the most practised faith, numbering approximately 240 million adherents, or about 40% of the entire population, concentrated in Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Southern Thailand and in the Southern Philippines. Indonesia is the most populous Muslim-majority country around the world.
  There are approximately 205 million Buddhists in Southeast Asia, making it the second largest religion in the region, after Islam. Approximately 38% of the global Buddhist population resides in Southeast Asia. Buddhism is predominant in Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Burma and Singapore. Ancestor worship and Confucianism are also widely practised in Vietnam and Singapore.
  Christianity is predominant in the Philippines, eastern Indonesia, East Malaysia and East Timor. The Philippines has the largest Roman Catholic population in Asia. East Timor is also predominantly Roman Catholic due to a history of Portuguese rule.
  No individual Southeast Asian country is religiously homogeneous. Some groups are protected de facto by their isolation from the rest of the world. In the world's most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia, Hinduism is dominant on islands such as Bali. Christianity also predominates in the rest of the part of the Philippines, New Guinea and Timor. Pockets of Hindu population can also be found around Southeast Asia in Singapore, Malaysia etc. Garuda (Sanskrit: Garuḍa), the phoenix who is the mount (vahanam) of Vishnu, is a national symbol in both Thailand and Indonesia; in the Philippines, gold images of Garuda have been found on Palawan; gold images of other Hindu gods and goddesses have also been found on Mindanao. Balinese Hinduism is somewhat different from Hinduism practised elsewhere, as Animism and local culture is incorporated into it. Christians can also be found throughout Southeast Asia; they are in the majority in East Timor and the Philippines, Asia's largest Christian nation. In addition, there are also older tribal religious practices in remote areas of Sarawak in East Malaysia, Highland Philippines and Papua in eastern Indonesia. In Burma, Sakka (Indra) is revered as a nat. In Vietnam, Mahayana Buddhism is practised, which is influenced by native animism but with strong emphasis on ancestor worship.
  The religious composition for each country is as follows: Some values are taken from the CIA World Factbook:
caption: The Kek Lok Si Buddhist Temple on Penang Island combines Chinese, Thai and Burmese architectural influences.
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