page_title: Religion in the Netherlands
section_title: Buddhism
hierarchical_section_title: Religion in the Netherlands / Buddhism
context_page_description: Religion in the Netherlands was predominantly Christianity between the 10th and until the late 20th century; in the late 19th century roughly 60% of the population was still Calvinist and 35% was Catholic. Since then there has been a significant decline of Christianity—both Catholic but especially Protestant—so that nowadays Catholics outnumber Protestants and there is a secular majority, while also including a relatively common Muslim minority.
  In 2015, Statistics Netherlands, the Dutch government institute that gathers statistical information about the Netherlands, found that 50.1% of the adult population declared to be not religious. Christians comprised 43.8% of the total population and were divided between Catholics with 23.7% and the members of the Protestant Church of the Netherlands with 15.5%, members of other Christian denominations were the 4.6%. Islam comprised 4.9% of the total population, Hinduism 0.6%, Buddhism 0.4% and Judaism 0.1%.
  A large majority of the Dutch population believes that religion should not have a determining role to play in politics and education.
context_section_description: Buddhists represent 0.4% of the Dutch population in 2015.
caption: Naropa Institute of Tibetan Buddhism in Cadzand
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