Top 10 Countries with Largest Muslim Population in the World Top 10 Countries with Largest Muslim Population in the World Top 10 Countries with Largest Muslim Population in the World Pinterest0 Islam is the second major religion after the Christianity in the world. It has billions of its followers living in different countries of the world. As per a report in 2010, it had 1.62 billion worshipers. At present, about one-fourth of the world’s population is Muslim. The Africa continent has the highest Muslim population as compared to the other regions on the planet. There are more than 50 countries having most Muslim population as the majority populace. While, on the other hand, further religious parties are present as minority populations in those countries. Following is a list of top 10 countries with largest Muslim population is the world. List of Top 10 Countries with Largest Muslim Population in the World Rank 2% Note : Population estimates are rounded to ten thousands. While Percentages are ascertained from rounded numbers. Figures may not add exactly due to rounding) INDONESIA FLAG Officially it is called Republic of Indonesia which is the largest Islamic country located in the Asia Continent.

Indonesian is the official language of this country. It is covering the land area of 1,904,569 square kilo meters and 4.85% water. In 2011 census, its population was calculated 237,424,363 from which 209,120,000 is Muslim population. Rupiah (Rp) (IDR) is the official currency of Indonesia. It has one of the strongest economies in the world. According to an estimate in 2013, its GDP (PPP) was calculated $1.314 trillion and per capita $5,302. World's Muslim Population Will Surpass Christians This Century, Pew Says : The Two-Way : NPR World's Muslim Population Will Surpass Christians This Century, Pew Says Indonesian Muslims perform Eid Al-Adha prayer at Al-Akbar Mosque in Oct. 2014 in Surabaya, Indonesia. Robertus Pudyanto/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Indonesian Muslims perform Eid Al-Adha prayer at Al-Akbar Mosque in Oct. 2014 in Surabaya, Indonesia.

Robertus Pudyanto/Getty Images Islam is growing more rapidly than any other religion in the world, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center that says the religion will nearly equal Christianity by 2050 before eclipsing it around 2070, if current trends continue. "The main reason Muslims are growing not only in number but in share worldwide is because of where they live," Alan Cooperman, Pew's director of religion research, tells NPR's Tom Gjelten. "Muslim populations are concentrated in some of the fastest-growing parts of the world." The finding is part of the center's report on the future of the world's religions. You can see the full report at the Pew site , which has also published an interactive tool to help readers drill down by geography and religion. "As of 2010, Christianity was by far the world's largest religion, with an estimated 2.2 billion adherents, nearly a third (31 percent) of all 6.9 billion people on Earth," the Pew report says.

"Islam was second, with 1.6 billion adherents, or 23 percent of the global population." Those numbers are predicted to shift in the coming decades, as the world's population rises to 9.3 billion by the middle of this century. In that time, Pew projects, Islam will grow by 73 percent while Christianity will grow by 35 percent — resulting in 2.8 billion Muslims and 2.9 billion Christians worldwide. Article continues after sponsorship The report says that by 2050: In the U.S., Christianity will decline to claim two-thirds of the population, instead of the more than three-quarters who claimed the religion in 2010. Islam will supplant Judaism as the second-most popular religion in the U.S. India will displace Indonesia as the home of the world's largest Muslim population, even as the country retains its Hindu majority. In addition, Pew says, "Four out of every 10 Christians in the world will live in sub-Saharan Africa." In addition to presenting raw numbers and projections, the Pew report looks at the demographic trends that are fueling the changes.

One factor is the wide range of fertility rates, with only Christians and Muslims currently higher than the world average fertility rate of 2.5. Buddhists are seen having the lowest fertility rate — part of the reason why Buddhism is projected to be the world's only major religion that's projected not to grow over the next four decades. While the growth of Islam is tied to fast-growing populations, Pew says, another group will be shrinking: those who are atheist, agnostic or unaffiliated with a religion. That group will decline globally, the center's reports says, despite "increasing in countries such as the United States and France." Which Country has the Highest Muslim Population | Top ten Countries | WhichCountry.co Which Country has the Highest Muslim Population 275 SHARES A Recent report prepared by whichcountry.co reveals that after Christianity, Islam is the second major religion in the world having about 1.6 billion estimated followers throughout the world. No doubt millions of people especially including the people living in United States may be someway associated with Muslims in the countries located in the Middle East or the North Africa.

In accordance to the Pew Research report, near about 62% of Muslims lives in the pacific Asian Regions and from these regions majority is located in Indonesia, Pakistan and India. However the Middle East-North African Regions have the huge concentration of Muslims belonging to the any region of the world. 93% of its populace is Muslim if compared to the 30% in the sub-Saharan African Regions and round about 24% in the Asian Pacific Regions. Muslims are making up the majority of their population size in 49 different countries on the earth. About 23% of world’s overall inhabitants are Islam followers. Following is a list of top ten countries with the largest Muslim population Around the Globe. Top Ten Countries with Highest Muslim Population Rank 2% From The Different Authentic Sources it is concluded that Indonesia is The country which has the highest Muslim population in the world. Today the Muslim community is increasing in the world. In a survey conducted in 2006, the nations having the greater part of Islamic people had an average growth rate of 1.8% per year. An authentic source has predicted that world’s Muslim population will grow double as rapid as the non-Muslims over the coming 20 years.

Moreover it is also expected that by the 2030, the Islam adherents will build up more than a quarter of the world’s entire populace, presently at least Over 50 Nations have Muslim Majority population. Currency : Indonesian Rupiah It is the world’s largest Islamic nation. According to a survey held in 2012 , 88% Inhabitants of this nation are Muslims. SEE ALSO Oh Mother India has more Muslim children than Pakistan fareedquraishi Yes! thats why its called Mother India….lol…… Mohammad Ibrahim good Goose_Rider LOLL!!! India has more muslims than the land of mohammad……saudi arabia….but surprisingly india is not a member of OIC…organisation of islamic countries. Satya But they are still minorities (13%) of indian population Goose_Rider minorities???

So 160-180 million muslims are called minorities…..even the entire gulf does not have these many muslims…..the real minorties in india are Jains, Brahmins(as they are now considered outcast by constitution of india), sikhs, buddhists…..and not to forget that…these fellows got their share of land in the form of bangladesh and pakistan……. fareedquraishi 160-180 million Muslims but total population is not declared…………..oye tu kahien news channel mein to kam nahi karta…adhi baat bata kar apni rating barah raha hai……LOL usama ahmad koi bi bkwas na kro jo hamrray islam ka again ho nahi tu tumhara wo hal kron ga jo tm soch bi nahi sakty or hamray paray rassol ka complet name likha kro btmez Goose_Rider mo mad — harm zade….aur….kutte ka bachcha…..are you happy now….now go to pakistan or arabia….

saleem khan harami ram harami ram tera kuta harami harami ram gashti ka bacha karishna harami ram ram di tui vich tera lun war gaya agar hum ne hindustan tabah karliya to dunya mein hinduism hi khatam ho jayega islamic countries dunya mein sirf pakistan nahi aur bhi boht ziyada hai aur hum aisa inshALLAH zaroor kareinge hinduism ka nam o nishan mit jayega kutte harami pehn chod tera pathar ka bhagwan bhi nahi bacha sakta tujhe jo tera gashti bhagwan apne ap ko nahi bachasakta tujhe kiya bachayega kutte . Goose_Rider lauda……..sorry sorry….tumko aadha lauda hi hai…..baki aadha tumhare ghar waalon khilaya……..

fareedquraishi It is Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Then so what if India has more Muslims than KSA……due to lack of education, economical crises and less wages they dont have any other job then 😉 so obviously you ppl have large birth rate…..LOL…..yeh bollywood movies ki waja se ho rahe hain..LOL….

Moreover, Today you laugh but some day you will be worried as they become majority and Hindus will become Minority…….Tell Modi he has the tools and plans that how to kill Muslims…………LOL Goose_Rider do not worry……….we know about hitlers gas chambers…….we will borrow a few ideas from him about containing cockroaches fareedquraishi That is what I was saying and you proved it……………..still you dont have a mind / brain to invent some thing yourself…………thats why you need others idea and equipment…..np ….borrow ideas…..copy cats…LOL…………..we dont have any problem with dumb and duffers …..Lagay rahoo muna bhai……………;)…we will be worried that day when you will start using your own brain…………….til then chill;) Goose_Rider this is what i told you and you are refusing to believe it……those days of subjugation are over……….i can understand that with yhour madarassa type education, you are not able to visualize the scenario….gone are the days when physical strength are key to success…..in 21 st century techology will be used to knock out cockroaches of invisible god……..TRUST ME…..if you

 still do not believe..just go and look at your fellow brothers fighting like dogs in the GULF…………..

fareedquraishi LOL…….Technology and you…………what a joke…………really …I challenge you and dont forget they follow Madarssa – e – Deoband located in India. First close that if you have courage then talk about us…………LOL…I am trusting you what ever you are saying…….but yet to see your skills in Indian Punjab, Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Assam…….Ahhhhhhh…LOL Call all Indians back from Gulf and other muslim countries where they have gone to serve Arab buddu’s…..Oh I forgot that you are technology geek…….theoretically Goose_Rider comparing irrelevant things does not make you any intelligent…….as i have said before , those who went to gulf made it on their free will…….why should i be concerned about them….oh are you worried that they are fart!ng on your holy desert lands???

Deoband….my A$$$$……..yes…yes…we know your skills and your co-religionists skills…we are watching your wonderful skills in syria and iraq……..by the way…..you seem to forget the fact that we have not yet shown our skills….except for muzzafarnagar and gujarat……you run to army and supreme court requesting for help….hahahaha…do remember…..display of kindness should not be considered as a mark of weakness……..

We know how to tackle you guys……don’t worry…….worry about your kin fighting in afganistan or iraq/syria or yemen or libya……butchering each other like rabid dogs…….pray to god that you guys do not get treated the same way here………..why don’t you book a ticket to afganistan before it is too late…… fareedquraishi What ever…..even whether your A S S….we are not interested in dirty things 😉 ………………writing so much ….i was thinking you will use technology….but I am grateful that a technological geek and a person from such a ADVANCE COUNTRY is sparing his precious time and replying not for single time but twice on a same comment……………AAG LAGI……KHALSA TEHRIK ZINDABAD, KASHMIR ZINDABAD……Lagay rahoo muna bhai……..burnol laga.hahahahahahaha Goose_Rider What what what??? Khalsa tehrik???

Hahaha……keep dreaming muzz1e kid…first learn to douse fire in your muzz1e majority country…….then you can dream about india……….you paki army is bombing pakhtoonistan in zarb e azb…by the way how much more time will they take…hmmmm???? Goose_Rider AHHHHHHHHHHH……..same foolish arguments………….Yes didn’t you see our skills in kashmir…..we muzzled down the kashmir….didn’t you see how we muzzled down the sikh terrorists…didn’t you how india knocked out most of north east terrorists ………in return what does pakistan do….it uses airforce to bomb its own country…it allows americans to kills their own citizens….hahaha….you pakistan dumb fellow………you are worse than a roadside bit chhh…..selling yourselves for a few dollars and a couple of jets….

fareedquraishi You are living in foolish paradise…..oh no in India……………….LOL Goose_Rider By 2050, India to have world’s largest populations of Hindus and Muslims | Pew Research Center By 2050, India to have world’s largest populations of Hindus and Muslims By Conrad Hackett 52 comments In the coming decades, India will have the distinction of having the largest populations of two of the three largest religions in the world – Islam and Hinduism – according to new religious projections data from Pew Research Center. India is already home to most of the world’s Hindus. In 2010, 94% of the world’s Hindus lived in India, and this is expected to remain true in 2050, when 1.3 billion Hindus are projected to live in the country. But India also is expected have 311 million Muslims in 2050 (11% of the global total), making it the country with the largest population of Muslims in the world. Currently, Indonesia has the world’s largest number of Muslims.

Muslims are expected to grow faster than Hindus because they have the youngest median age and the highest fertility rates among major religious groups in India. In 2010, the median age of Indian Muslims was 22, compared with 26 for Hindus and 28 for Christians. Likewise, Muslim women have an average of 3.2 children per woman, compared with 2.5 for Hindus and 2.3 for Christians. Due to these factors, India’s Muslim community will expand faster than its Hindu population, rising from 14.4% in 2010 to 18.4% in 2050. But, even with this increase, Hindus will make up more than three-in-four Indians (76.7%) in 2050. Indeed, the number of Hindus in India will still be larger than the five largest Muslim populations in the world’s biggest Muslim countries (India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria and Bangladesh) combined. India also has a number of smaller religious minorities.

In 2010, approximately 2.5% of the country’s population was Christian, including members of Scheduled Castes (historically referred to as Untouchables or Dalits) who sometimes identify as Hindu when completing official forms. Christians are expected to make up 2.2% of India’s population in 2050. Religious turmoil (between Muslims and Hindus, but also involving Sikhs, Christians and others) has long been a fact of life in India. The year the country won its independence from Britain, the Indian subcontinent was partitioned along religious lines , into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India. Even though the separation was intended to ease religious tensions, it led to a spasm of violence that left up to a million dead and more than 10 million displaced. In the nearly 70 years since independence, religious violence has claimed thousands more lives, including that of modern India’s founder, Mahatma Gandhi , as well as Prime Minister Indira Gandhi . A recent Pew Research Center report on religious restrictions found India to have one of the highest levels of social hostilities involving religion in the world.

Even India’s current prime minister, Narendra Modi, has been dogged by allegations of religious intolerance, stemming from anti-Muslim violence in the state of Gujarat in 2002, which according to some estimates killed as many as 2,000 people. Modi, who was chief minister of Gujarat at the time, has been accused of not doing enough to stop the killing because he is leader of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and the violence was perpetrated by Hindus against Muslims. Correction: An earlier version of this post described Narendra Modi as a former governor of Gujarat. He was formerly chief minister of the state. The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050 | Pew Research Center April 2, 2015 The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050 Why Muslims Are Rising Fastest and the Unaffiliated Are Shrinking as a Share of the World’s Population The religious profile of the world is rapidly changing, driven primarily by differences in fertility rates and the size of youth populations among the world’s major religions, as well as by people switching faiths.

Over the next four decades, Christians will remain the largest religious group, but Islam will grow faster than any other major religion. If current trends continue, by 2050 … The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world. Atheists, agnostics and other people who do not affiliate with any religion – though increasing in countries such as the United States and France – will make up a declining share of the world’s total population. The global Buddhist population will be about the same size it was in 2010, while the Hindu and Jewish populations will be larger than they are today. In Europe, Muslims will make up 10% of the overall population. India will retain a Hindu majority but also will have the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, surpassing Indonesia. In the United States, Christians will decline from more than three-quarters of the population in 2010 to two-thirds in 2050, and Judaism will no longer be the largest non-Christian religion. Muslims will be more numerous in the U.S. than people who identify as Jewish on the basis of religion. Four out of every 10 Christians in the world will live in sub-Saharan Africa.

These are among the global religious trends highlighted in new demographic projections by the Pew Research Center. The projections take into account the current size and geographic distribution of the world’s major religions, age differences, fertility and mortality rates, international migration and patterns in conversion. As of 2010, Christianity was by far the world’s largest religion, with an estimated 2.2 billion adherents, nearly a third (31%) of all 6.9 billion people on Earth. Islam was second, with 1.6 billion adherents, or 23% of the global population. If current demographic trends continue, however, Islam will nearly catch up by the middle of the 21st century. Between 2010 and 2050, the world’s total population is expected to rise to 9.3 billion, a 35% increase. 1 Over that same period, Muslims – a comparatively youthful population with high fertility rates – are projected to increase by 73%. The number of Christians also is projected to rise, but more slowly, at about the same rate (35%) as the global population overall.

As a result, according to the Pew Research projections, by 2050 there will be near parity between Muslims (2.8 billion, or 30% of the population) and Christians (2.9 billion, or 31%), possibly for the first time in history. 2 With the exception of Buddhists, all of the world’s major religious groups are poised for at least some growth in absolute numbers in the coming decades. The global Buddhist population is expected to be fairly stable because of low fertility rates and aging populations in countries such as China, Thailand and Japan. Worldwide, the Hindu population is projected to rise by 34%, from a little over 1 billion to nearly 1.4 billion, roughly keeping pace with overall population growth. Jews, the smallest religious group for which separate projections were made, are expected to grow 16%, from a little less than 14 million in 2010 to 16.1 million worldwide in 2050.

Adherents of various folk religions – including African traditional religions, Chinese folk religions, Native American religions and Australian aboriginal religions – are projected to increase by 11%, from 405 million to nearly 450 million. And all other religions combined – an umbrella category that includes Baha’is, Jains, Sikhs, Taoists and many smaller faiths – are projected to increase 6%, from a total of approximately 58 million to more than 61 million over the same period. 3 While growing in absolute size, however, folk religions, Judaism and “other religions” (the umbrella category considered as a whole) will not keep pace with global population growth. Each of these groups is projected to make up a smaller percentage of the world’s population in 2050 than it did in 2010. 4 Similarly, the religiously unaffiliated population is projected to shrink as a percentage of the global population, even though it will increase in absolute number. In 2010, censuses and surveys indicate, there were about 1.1 billion atheists, agnostics and people who do not identify with any particular religion.

5 By 2050, the unaffiliated population is expected to exceed 1.2 billion. But, as a share of all the people in the world, those with no religious affiliation are projected to decline from 16% in 2010 to 13% by the middle of this century. At the same time, however, the unaffiliated are expected to continue to increase as a share of the population in much of Europe and North America. In the United States, for example, the unaffiliated are projected to grow from an estimated 16% of the total population (including children) in 2010 to 26% in 2050. As the example of the unaffiliated shows, there will be vivid geographic differences in patterns of religious growth in the coming decades. One of the main determinants of that future growth is where each group is geographically concentrated today. Religions with many adherents in developing countries – where birth rates are high, and infant mortality rates generally have been falling – are likely to grow quickly. Much of the worldwide growth of Islam and Christianity, for example, is expected to take place in sub-Saharan Africa.

Today’s religiously unaffiliated population, by contrast, is heavily concentrated in places with low fertility and aging populations, such as Europe, North America, China and Japan. Globally, Muslims have the highest fertility rate, an average of 3.1 children per woman – well above replacement level (2.1), the minimum typically needed to maintain a stable population. 6 Christians are second, at 2.7 children per woman. Hindu fertility (2.4) is similar to the global average (2.5). Worldwide, Jewish fertility (2.3 children per woman) also is above replacement level. All the other groups have fertility levels too low to sustain their populations: folk religions (1.8 children per woman), other religions (1.7), the unaffiliated (1.7) and Buddhists (1.6). Another important determinant of growth is the current age distribution of each religious group – whether its adherents are predominantly young, with their prime childbearing years still ahead, or older and largely past their childbearing years. In 2010, more than a quarter of the world’s total population (27%) was under the age of 15.

But an even higher percentage of Muslims (34%) and Hindus (30%) were younger than 15, while the share of Christians under 15 matched the global average (27%). These bulging youth populations are among the reasons that Muslims are projected to grow faster than the world’s overall population and that Hindus and Christians are projected to roughly keep pace with worldwide population growth. All the remaining groups have smaller-than-average youth populations, and many of them have disproportionately large numbers of adherents over the age of 59. For example, 11% of the world’s population was at least 60 years old in 2010. But fully 20% of Jews around the world are 60 or older, as are 15% of Buddhists, 14% of Christians, 14% of adherents of other religions (taken as a whole), 13% of the unaffiliated and 11% of adherents of folk religions. By contrast, just 7% of Muslims and 8% of Hindus are in this oldest age category. In addition to fertility rates and age distributions, religious switching is likely to play a role in the growth of religious groups.

But conversion patterns are complex and varied. In some countries, it is fairly common for adults to leave their childhood religion and switch to another faith. In others, changes in religious identity are rare, legally cumbersome or even illegal. The Pew Research Center projections attempt to incorporate patterns in religious switching in 70 countries where surveys provide information on the number of people who say they no longer belong to the religious group in which they were raised. In the projection model, all directions of switching are possible, and they may be partially offsetting. In the United States, for example, surveys find that some people who were raised with no religious affiliation have switched to become Christians, while some who grew up as Christians have switched to become unaffiliated. These types of patterns are projected to continue as future generations come of age. (For more details on how and where switching was modeled, see the Methodology . For alternative growth scenarios involving either switching in additional countries or no switching at all, see Chapter 1 .) Over the coming decades, Christians are expected to experience the largest net losses from switching.

Globally, about 40 million people are projected to switch into Christianity, while 106 million are projected to leave, with most joining the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated. (See chart above.) All told, the unaffiliated are expected to add 97 million people and lose 36 million via switching, for a net gain of 61 million by 2050. Modest net gains through switching also are expected for Muslims (3 million), adherents of folk religions (3 million) and members of other religions (2 million). Jews are expected to experience a net loss of about 300,000 people due to switching, while Buddhists are expected to lose nearly 3 million. International migration is another factor that will influence the projected size of religious groups in various regions and countries. Forecasting future migration patterns is difficult, because migration is often linked to government policies and international events that can change quickly. For this reason, many population projections do not include migration in their models.

But working with researchers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, the Pew Research Center has developed an innovative way of using data on past migration patterns to estimate the religious composition of migrant flows in the decades ahead. (For details on how the projections were made, see Chapter 1 .) The impact of migration can be seen in the examples shown in the graph at the right, which compares projection scenarios with and without migration in the regions where it will have the greatest impact. In Europe, for instance, the Muslim share of the population is expected to increase from 5.9% in 2010 to 10.2% in 2050 when migration is taken into account along with other demographic factors that are driving population change, such as fertility rates and age. Without migration, the Muslim share of Europe’s population in 2050 is projected to be nearly two percentage points lower (8.4%). In North America, the Hindu share of the population is expected to nearly double in the decades ahead, from 0.7% in 2010 to 1.3% in 2050, when migration is included in the projection models.

Without migration, the Hindu share of the region’s population would remain about the same (0.8%). In the Middle East and North Africa, the continued migration of Christians into the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) is expected to offset the exodus of Christians from other countries in the region. 7 If migration were not factored into the 2050 projections, the estimated Christian share of the region’s population would drop below 3%. With migration factored in, however, the estimated Christian share is expected to be just above 3% (down from nearly 4% in 2010). Beyond the Year 2050 This report describes how the global religious landscape would change if current demographic trends continue. With each passing year, however, there is a chance that unforeseen events – war, famine, disease, technological innovation, political upheaval, etc. – will alter the size of one religious group or another. Owing to the difficulty of peering more than a few decades into the future, the projections stop at 2050.

Readers may wonder, though, what would happen to the population trajectories highlighted in this report if they were projected into the second half of this century. Given the rapid projected increase from 2010 to 2050 in the Muslim share of the world’s population, would Muslims eventually outnumber Christians? And, if so, when? The answer depends on continuation of the trends described in Chapter 1. If the main projection model is extended beyond 2050, the Muslim share of the world’s population would equal the Christian share, at roughly 32% each, around 2070. After that, the number of Muslims would exceed the number of Christians, but both religious groups would grow, roughly in tandem, as shown in the graph above. By the year 2100, about 1% more of the world’s population would be Muslim (35%) than Christian (34%). The projected growth of Muslims and Christians would be driven largely by the continued expansion of Africa’s population. Due to the heavy concentration of Christians and Muslims in this high-fertility region, both groups would increase as a percentage of the global population.

Combined, the world’s two largest religious groups would make up more than two-thirds of the global population in 2100 (69%), up from 61% in 2050 and 55% in 2010. It bears repeating, however, that many factors could alter these trajectories. For example, if a large share of China’s population were to switch to Christianity (as discussed in this sidebar ), that shift alone could bolster Christianity’s current position as the world’s most populous religion. Or if disaffiliation were to become common in countries with large Muslim populations – as it is now in some countries with large Christian populations – that trend could slow or reverse the increase in Muslim numbers. Regional and Country-Level Projections In addition to making projections at the global level, this report projects religious change in 198 countries and territories with at least 100,000 people as of 2010, covering 99.9% of the world’s population. Population estimates for an additional 36 countries and territories are included in regional and global totals throughout the report.

The report also divides the world into six major regions and looks at how each region’s religious composition is likely to change from 2010 to 2050, assuming that current patterns in migration and other demographic trends continue. 8 Due largely to high fertility, sub-Saharan Africa is projected to experience the fastest overall growth, rising from 12% of the world’s population in 2010 to about 20% in 2050. The Middle East-North Africa region also is expected to grow faster than the world as a whole, edging up from 5% of the global population in 2010 to 6% in 2050. Ongoing growth in both regions will fuel global increases in the Muslim population. In addition, sub-Saharan Africa’s Christian population is expected to double, from 517 million in 2010 to 1.1 billion in 2050. The share of the world’s Christians living in sub-Saharan Africa will rise from 24% in 2010 to 38% in 2050.

Meanwhile, the Asia-Pacific region is expected to have a declining share of the world’s population (53% in 2050, compared with 59% in 2010). This will be reflected in the slower growth of religions heavily concentrated in the region, including Buddhism and Chinese folk religions, as well as slower growth of Asia’s large unaffiliated population. One exception is Hindus, who are overwhelmingly concentrated in India, where the population is younger and fertility rates are higher than in China or Japan. As previously mentioned, Hindus are projected to roughly keep pace with global population growth. India’s large Muslim population also is poised for rapid growth. Although India will continue to have a Hindu majority, by 2050 it is projected to have the world’s largest Muslim population, surpassing Indonesia. The remaining geographic regions also will contain declining shares of the world’s population: Europe is projected to go from 11% to 8%, Latin American and the Caribbean from 9% to 8%, and North America from 5% to a little less than 5%. Europe is the only region where the total population is projected to decline.

Europe’s Christian population is expected to shrink by about 100 million people in the coming decades, dropping from 553 million to 454 million. While Christians will remain the largest religious group in Europe, they are projected to drop from three-quarters of the population to less than two-thirds. By 2050, nearly a quarter of Europeans (23%) are expected to have no religious affiliation, and Muslims will make up about 10% of the region’s population, up from 5.9% in 2010. Over the same period, the number of Hindus in Europe is expected to roughly double, from a little under 1.4 million (0.2% of Europe’s population) to nearly 2.7 million (o.4%), mainly as a result of immigration. Buddhists appear headed for similarly rapid growth in Europe – a projected rise from 1.4 million to 2.5 million. In North America, Muslims and followers of “other religions” are the fastest-growing religious groups.

In the United States, for example, the share of the population that belongs to other religions is projected to more than double – albeit from a very small base – rising from 0.6% to 1.5%. 9 Christians are projected to decline from 78% of the U.S. population in 2010 to 66% in 2050, while the unaffiliated are expected to rise from 16% to 26%. And by the middle of the 21st century, the United States is likely to have more Muslims (2.1% of the population) than people who identify with the Jewish faith (1.4%). 10 In Latin America and the Caribbean, Christians will remain the largest religious group, making up 89% of the population in 2050, down slightly from 90% in 2010. Latin America’s religiously unaffiliated population is projected to grow both in absolute number and percentage terms, rising from about 45 million people (8%) in 2010 to 65 million (9%) in 2050.

11 Changing Religious Majorities Several countries are projected to have a different religious majority in 2050 than they did in 2010. The number of countries with Christian majorities is expected to decline from 159 to 151, as Christians are projected to drop below 50% of the population in Australia, Benin, Bosnia-Herzegovina, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Republic of Macedonia and the United Kingdom. Muslims in 2050 are expected to make up more than 50% of the population in 51 countries, two more than in 2010, as both the Republic of Macedonia and Nigeria are projected to gain Muslim majorities. But Nigeria also will continue to have a very large Christian population. Indeed, Nigeria is projected to have the third-largest Christian population in the world by 2050, after the United States and Brazil. As of 2050, the largest religious group in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands is expected to be the unaffiliated.

About These Projections While many people have offered predictions about the future of religion, these are the first formal demographic projections using data on age, fertility, mortality, migration and religious switching for multiple religious groups around the world. Demographers at the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C., and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria, gathered the input data from more than 2,500 censuses, surveys and population registers, an effort that has taken six years and will continue. The projections cover eight major groups: Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, adherents of folk religions, adherents of other religions and the unaffiliated (see Appendix C: Defining the Religious Groups). Because censuses and surveys in many countries do not provide information on religious subgroups – such as Sunni and Shia Muslims or Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Christians – the projections are for each religious group as a whole. Data on subgroups of the unaffiliated are also unavailable in many countries. As a result, separate projections are not possible for atheists or agnostics.

The projection model was developed in collaboration with researchers in the Age and Cohort Change Project at IIASA, who are world leaders in population projections methodology. The model uses an advanced version of the cohort-component method typically employed by demographers to forecast population growth. It starts with a population of baseline age groups, or cohorts, divided by sex and religion. Each cohort is projected into the future by adding likely gains (immigrants and people switching in) and by subtracting likely losses (deaths, emigrants and people switching out) year by year. The youngest cohorts, ages 0-4, are created by applying age-specific fertility rates to each female cohort in the childbearing years (ages 15-49), with children inheriting the mother’s religion. For more details, see the Methodology . 12 In the process of gathering input data and developing the projection model, the Pew Research Center previously published reports on the current size and geographic distribution of major religious groups, including Muslims (2009), Christians (2011) and several other faiths (2012).

An initial set of projections for one religious group, Muslims, was published in 2011, although it did not attempt to take religious switching into account. Some social theorists have suggested that as countries develop economically, more of their inhabitants will move away from religious affiliation. While that has been the general experience in some parts of the world, notably Europe, it is not yet clear whether it is a universal pattern. 13 In any case, the projections in this report are not based on theories about economic development leading to secularization. Rather, the projections extend the recently observed patterns of religious switching in all countries for which sufficient data are available (70 countries in all). In addition, the projections reflect the United Nations’ expectation that in countries with high fertility rates, those rates gradually will decline in coming decades, alongside rising female educational attainment. And the projections assume that people gradually are living longer in most countries. These and other key input data and assumptions are explained in detail in Chapter 1 and the Methodology ( Appendix A ). Since religious change has never previously been projected on this scale, some cautionary words are in order.

Population projections are estimates built on current population data and assumptions about demographic trends, such as declining birth rates and rising life expectancies in particular countries. The projections are what will occur if the current data are accurate and current trends continue. But many events – scientific discoveries, armed conflicts, social movements, political upheavals, natural disasters and changing economic conditions, to name just a few – can shift demographic trends in unforeseen ways. That is why the projections are limited to a 40-year time frame, and subsequent chapters of this report try to give a sense of how much difference it could make if key assumptions were different. For example, China’s 1.3 billion people (as of 2010) loom very large in global trends. At present, about 5% of China’s population is estimated to be Christian, and more than 50% is religiously unaffiliated. Because reliable figures on religious switching in China are not available, the projections do not contain any forecast for conversions in the world’s most populous country.

But if Christianity expands in China in the decades to come – as some experts predict – then by 2050, the global numbers of Christians may be higher than projected, and the decline in the percentage of the world’s population that is religiously unaffiliated may be even sharper. (For more details on the possible impact of religious switching in China, see Chapter 1 .) Finally, readers should bear in mind that within every major religious group, there is a spectrum of belief and practice. The projections are based on the number of people who self-identify with each religious group, regardless of their level of observance. What it means to be Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish or a member of any other faith may vary from person to person, country to country, and decade to decade. Acknowledgements These population projections were produced by the Pew Research Center as part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, which analyzes religious change and its impact on societies around the world. Funding for the Global Religious Futures project comes from The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation. Many staff members in the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life project contributed to this effort.

Conrad Hackett was the lead researcher and primary author of this report. Alan Cooperman served as lead editor. Anne Shi and Juan Carlos Esparza Ochoa made major contributions to data collection, storage and analysis. Bill Webster created the graphics and Stacy Rosenberg and Ben Wormald oversaw development of the interactive data presentations and the Global Religious Futures website. Sandra Stencel, Greg Smith, Michael Lipka and Aleksandra Sandstrom provided editorial assistance. The report was number-checked by Shi, Esparza Ochoa, Claire Gecewicz and Angelina Theodorou. Several researchers in the Age and Cohort Change project of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis collaborated on the projections, providing invaluable expertise on advanced (“multistate”) population modeling and standardization of input data. Marcin Stonawski wrote the cutting-edge software used for these projections and led the collection and analysis of European data. Michaela Potančoková standardized the fertility data. Vegard Skirbekk coordinated IIASA’s research contributions. Additionally, Guy Abel at the Vienna Institute of Demography helped construct the country-level migration flow data used in the projections.

Over the past six years, a number of former Pew Research Center staff members also played critical roles in producing the population projections. Phillip Connor prepared the migration input data, wrote descriptions of migration results and methods, and helped write the chapters on each religious group and geographic region. Noble Kuriakose was involved in nearly all stages of the project and helped draft the chapter on demographic factors and the Methodology. Former intern Joseph Naylor helped design maps, and David McClendon, another former intern, helped research global patterns of religious switching. The original concept for this study was developed by Luis Lugo, former director of the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life project, with assistance from former senior researcher Brian J. Grim and visiting senior research fellow Mehtab Karim. Others at the Pew Research Center who provided editorial or research guidance include Michael Dimock, Claudia Deane, Scott Keeter, Jeffrey S. Passel and D’Vera Cohn. Communications support was provided by Katherine Ritchey and Russ Oates.

We also received very helpful advice and feedback on portions of this report from Nicholas Eberstadt, Henry Wendt Scholar in Political Economy, American Enterprise Institute; Roger Finke, Director of the Association of Religion Data Archives and Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies, The Pennsylvania State University; Carl Haub, Senior Demographer, Population Reference Bureau; Todd Johnson, Associate Professor of Global Christianity and Director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary; Ariela Keysar, Associate Research Professor and Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, Trinity College; Chaeyoon Lim, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Arland Thornton, Research Professor in the Population Studies Center, University of Michigan; Jenny Trinitapoli, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Demography and Religious Studies, The Pennsylvania State University; David Voas, Professor of Population Studies and Acting Director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex; Robert Wuthnow, Andlinger Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University; and Fenggang Yang, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center on Religion and Chinese Society, Purdue University.

While the data collection and projection methodology were guided by our consultants and advisers, the Pew Research Center is solely responsible for the interpretation and reporting of the data. Roadmap to the Report The remainder of this report details the projections from multiple angles. The first chapter looks at the demographic factors that shape the projections, including sections on fertility rates, life expectancy, age structure, religious switching and migration. The next chapter details projections by religious group, with separate sections on Christians, Muslims, the religiously unaffiliated, Hindus, Buddhists, adherents of folk or traditional religions, members of “other religions” (consolidated into a single group) and Jews. A final chapter takes a region-by-region look at the projections, including separate sections on Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, North America and sub-Saharan Africa. This overall projection (9.3 billion in 2050) matches the “medium variant” forecast in the United Nations Population Division’s World Population Prospects, 2010 revision. A recent update from the United Nations has a somewhat higher estimate, 9.55 billion. The U.N. does not make projections for religious groups.

↩ Christianity began about six centuries before Islam, a head start that helps explain why some scholars believe that, in the past, Christians always have been more numerous than Muslims around the world. The Pew Research Center consulted several scholars on this historical question. Todd M. Johnson, co-editor of the “Atlas of Global Christianity,” and Houssain Kettani, author of independent estimates of the growth of Islam, contend that the number of Christians always has exceeded the number of Muslims. But some other experts, including Oxford University demographer David Coleman and Columbia University historian Richard W. Bulliet, say it is possible that Muslims may have outnumbered Christians globally sometime between 1000 and 1600 C.E., as Muslim populations expanded and Christian populations were decimated by the Black Death in Europe. All of the experts acknowledged that estimates of the size of religious groups in the Middle Ages are fraught with uncertainty. ↩ Although some faiths in the “other religions” category have millions of adherents around the world, censuses and surveys in many countries do not measure them specifically. Because of the scarcity of census and survey data, Pew Research has not projected the size of individual religions within this category.

Estimates of the global size of these faiths generally come from other sources, such as the religious groups themselves. By far the largest of these groups is Sikhs, who numbered about 25 million in 2010, according to the World Religion Database. Estimates from other sources on the size of additional groups in this category can be found in the sidebar in Chapter 2. ↩ Jews make up such a small share of the global population, however, that the projected decline is not visible when percentages are rounded to one decimal place. Jews comprised 0.20% of the world’s population in 2010 and are projected to comprise 0.17% in 2050. Both figures are rounded to 0.2% (two-tenths of 1%) in the charts and tables in this report. ↩ In many countries, censuses and demographic surveys do not enumerate atheists and agnostics as distinct populations, so it is not possible to reliably estimate the global size of these subgroups within the broad category of the religiously unaffiliated. ↩ The standard measure of fertility in this report is the Total Fertility Rate.

In countries with low infant and child mortality rates, a Total Fertility Rate close to 2.1 children per woman is sufficient for each generation to replace itself. Replacement-level fertility is higher in countries with elevated mortality rates. For more information on how fertility shapes population growth, see Chapter 1 . ↩ Most immigrants come to GCC countries as temporary workers. These projections model a dynamic migrant population in GCC countries, in which some migrants leave as others arrive and, over time, there are net gains in the size of the foreign-born population within each GCC country. ↩ The assumptions and trends used in these projections are discussed in Chapter 1 and in the Methodology section ( Appendix A ). ↩ As noted above, the “other religions” category includes many groups – such as Baha’is, Sikhs and Wiccans – that cannot be projected separately due to lack of data on their fertility rates, age structure and other demographic characteristics. ↩ People who identify their religion as Jewish in surveys are projected to decline from an estimated 1.8% of the U.S. population in 2010 to 1.4% in 2050.

These figures, however, do not include “cultural” or “ethnic” Jews – people who have Jewish ancestry but do not describe their present religion as Jewish. A 2013 Pew Research survey found that more than one-in-five U.S. Jewish adults (22%) say they are atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular, but consider themselves Jewish aside from religion and have at least one Jewish parent. For the purposes of the religious group projections in this report, people who identify their religion as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular are categorized as unaffiliated. To avoid double-counting, they are not included in the Jewish population. If the projected Jewish numbers were expanded to include cultural or ethnic Jews, it is possible that the size of the more broadly defined Jewish population might be greater than the projected number of U.S. Muslims in 2050. ↩ The global projections are for Christians as a whole and do not attempt to calculate separate growth trajectories for subgroups such as Catholics and Protestants. However, other studies by the Pew Research Center show that Catholics have been declining and Protestants have been rising as a percentage of the population in some Latin American countries.

See the Pew Research Center’s 2014 report “ Religion in Latin America .” ↩ How accurate have population projections using the cohort-component method been in the past? An overview of how previous projections for general populations compare with actual population trends is provided in the National Research Council’s 2000 book “Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World’s Population,” population . ↩ For example, there is little evidence of economic development leading to religious disaffiliation in Muslim-majority countries. In Hindu-majority India, religious affiliation remains nearly universal despite rapid social and economic change. And in China, religious affiliation – though very difficult to measure – may be rising along with economic development. ↩ Pagination By 2050, India to surpass Indonesia, will have largest Muslim population: Study - Times of India Times of India Amsterdam: Mother, daughter rescued from car in canal By 2050, India to surpass Indonesia, will have largest Muslim population: Study Hindus will become the world's third largest population by 2050, while India will overtake Indonesia as the country with the largest Muslim population.

PTI | Apr 3, 2015, 02.28 AM IST Hindus will become the world's third largest population by 2050, while India will overtake Indonesia as the co... Read More WASHINGTON: Hindus will become the world's third largest population by 2050, while India will overtake Indonesia as the country with the largest Muslim population , according to a new study. According to the Pew Research Center's religious profile predictions assessed data released on Thursday, the Hindu population is projected to rise by 34 per cent worldwide, from a little over 1 billion to nearly 1.4 billion by 2050. By 2050, Hindus will be third, making up 14.9 per cent of the world's total population, followed by people who do not affiliate with any religion, accounting for 13.2 per cent, the report said. The people with no religious affiliation currently have the third largest share of the world's total population. Muslims are projected to grow faster than the world's overall population and that Hindus and Christians are projected to roughly keep pace with worldwide population growth, the report said.

Assam records highest rise in Muslim population "India will retain a Hindu majority but also will have the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, surpassing Indonesia," it said. "Over the next four decades, Christians will remain the largest religious group, but Islam will grow faster than any other major religion," according to the report. The report predicted that by 2050 there will be near parity between Muslims (2.8 billion, or 30 per cent of the population) and Christians (2.9 billion, or 31 per cent), possibly for the first time in history. There were 1.6 billion Muslims in 2010, compared to 2.17 billion Christians. "The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world," it added. If the trend continues, Islam will be the most popular faith in the world after 2070, it said. By 2050, Muslims will make up about 10 per cent of the Europe's population, up from 5.9 per cent in 2010.

Over the same period, the number of Hindus in Europe is expected to roughly double, from a little under 1.4 million (0.2 per cent of Europe's population) to nearly 2.7 million (0.4 per cent), mainly as a result of immigration, it said. In North America, the Hindu share of the population is expected to nearly double in the decades ahead, from 0.7 per cent in 2010 to 1.3 per cent in 2050, when migration is included in the projection models. Without migration, the Hindu share of the region's population would remain the same. Buddhism is the only faith that is not expected to increase its followers, due to an ageing population and stable fertility rates in Buddhist countries, such as China, Japan and Thailand. The projections considered fertility rates, trends in youth population growth and religious conversion statistics.

Question: In population terms, which is the world's largest Muslim country?
Answer: Indonesia