In 2020, how many people believe in a Religion? And which Religion do they believe in? Which are the Religions with more people?
In this in-depth look at different data and information about religions in the world. Let’s start with one figure. Currently the world’s population stands at 7.83 billion. Of these, about 16% claim to be “unreligious”. The remainder instead believes in a Religion.
Major Religious Groups in the World
But what are the most popular Religions in the world? In this video made by the channel “Statistics and Data” you can see the evolution of the data from 1945 to 2020. In 2020 the most popular religions are Islam Summi, Hindu and Christian Roman Catholics. Islam Summi in fact surpassed in 2019 over 1 billion and 500 million people who practice it. Hindu, on the other hand, is at 1 billion 160 million. While Christian Roman Catholics is at 1 billion 120 million. However, if we add up the different Christian religions, this group of religions still comes out on top. In fact, there are about 2.2 billion Christians in the world. This is followed by Islam with 1.6 billion believers and Hinduism with over 1 billion.
Most Popular Religion in 2050
The growth of Islam also due to the increase in population in some parts of the world has been very fast. So has the rise of the Hindi Religion. But what will be the most practiced religions in 2050 and 2100? The Pew Researcher Center has tried to answer this question with a research. According to this study in 2050 the first religion (by group) will still be Christian. Compared to 2.17 billion in 2010, the population will increase to 2.92 billion. A strong growth, but that will be less than strong Muslim population. In fact this will pass from 1.6 billion to 2.76 billion. In 2050 Christians and Muslims will be more or less equal in terms of population in the world.
While increasing in absolute terms, the Christian population in percentage terms will not change from 2010 to 2050. In fact, if in 2010 it was 31.4% of the total population, in 2050 it will remain 31.4%. Growing, however, will be the Muslim population. From 23.2% in 2010 it will rise to 29.7%. Almost 3/10 of the population will profess this religion in 2050.
What about in 2100?
The longer the projections, the harder it is to predict what will happen. Just think of what happened with Covid-19 that shocked the entire planet. But it is still interesting to see what the trend will be in 2100.
The longer the projections, the harder it is to predict what will happen. Just think of what happened with Covid-19 that shocked the entire planet. But it is still interesting to see what the trend will be in 2100. According to several studies the world population in 2100 will be about 11 billion inhabitants. A very strong growth compared to the current 7.7 in 2020. A growth that will not be equal throughout the world, on the contrary. Continents such as Asia and Africa will grow much more. Europe, given its very low fertility rates, will have very low growth and, in the future, a very elderly population.

ecause of this growth in some areas more than others, it is easily foreseeable that the population in 2070, worldwide, could catch up with the Muslim population in percentage terms. In fact, in that year, 32.3% of the world should be Christian and 32.3% should be Muslim. In 2100 the figures should change further: 34.9% will be Muslim and 33.8% Christian.
Largest Christian Populations by Country – 1945/2020
In 2020, the population with the most people of Christian faith is the United States. In total, there are approximately 243 million Christian believers in 2020. Following as the second largest nation is Brazil with about 185 million Christians, followed by Mexico with 118 million and Russia with 104 million. The first three nations are part of America, but in the top 15 there are also many African nations, 5 of which are Congo, Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa. Also in the top 15 are 3 nations of the European Union: Germany, Italy and France.
Sources and useful links
To learn about future projections, I invite you to read this interesting article: https://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
To see the video on the evolution of Religions from 1945 to 2020: https://youtu.be/XW43xRH-UgQ
To read more articles: http://statisticsanddata.org/
Support the channel