THE number of majority-Christian countries — where Christians make up more than half the population — declined over the decade 2010-20, owing to an increase in the number of people who declare no religious affiliation, research has found.
Christianity is still the majority religion in 60 per cent of countries, but in ten years this has fallen two per cent, the Pew Research Center reports. It analysed national censuses and large-scale population surveys.
The biggest shift in affiliation occurred in the UK, Australia, France, and Uruguay, all of which have lost their Christian majorities in the past decade. Between 2010 and 2020, the number of Christians in the UK fell from 62 per cent to 49 per cent, and the number of religiously unaffiliated rose from 29 per cent to 40 per cent. In Australia, the drop in those saying that they were Christian was even sharper: from 67 per cent in 2010 to 47 per cent in 2020.
Uruguay also lost its Christian majority — dropping from 61 per cent to 44 per cent; and its population became majority religiously unaffiliated, the numbers declaring no religion climbing from 36 per cent to 52 per cent.
New Zealand and the Netherlands have also gained a majority population of religiously unaffiliated people, joining China, North Korea, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Macao, and Japan.
The study found no change in the number of countries or territories in which the majority are Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish.
The Pew Center’s figures show that the share of countries that are majority Christian remains so high because Christians are evenly dispersed around the world. They make up 29 per cent of the world’s population, and yet are a majority in 120 countries.
A researcher, Salia Fahmy, said: “This is because Christians were more evenly dispersed geographically and formed majorities in countries of all population sizes — from tiny Micronesia to the United States, the world’s third most populous country.”
In contrast, Hinduism and Islam have majority populations in fewer countries, as they are less geographically dispersed. Muslims make up 26 per cent of the world’s population and are the majority in 26 per cent of the countries reviewed.
Hindus make up 15 per cent of the global population and yet are the majority in only one per cent of the world’s countries, as adherents are largely concentrated in India and Nepal.