The following article was published on StarsInsider.
The largest religions in the world
Around the world, billions of people have organized their entire lives around questions of morality, ethics, philosophy, and even cultural relevance. And the planet’s largest religions are some of the main ways that humanity has tried to answer these questions.
Religions are vastly different in some incredibly impressive ways. They shape cultures, laws, holidays, art, family life, and the way we conduct ourselves in public. But which ones boast the biggest populations across the planet?
15. Confucianism
Confucianism grew from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, with a focus on family loyalty, ritual, and social harmony. Confucianism still shapes education and government ideals in parts of East Asia today, along with everyday etiquette. About 8.76 million people are counted as Confucianists, though many more follow Confucian-style ancestor rites and moral codes without listing it as their main religion, especially in contemporary China.
14. Daoism
Daoism (or Taoism) teaches living and existing in harmony with the Dao, the fundamental part of the universe. The religion generally emphasizes the three treasures of compassion, frugality, and humility. Around 8.77 million people identify primarily as Daoists, but Daoist temples, rituals, and ideas blend deeply into wider Chinese folk religion, so many more practice Daoist-inspired customs without actually using the label.
13. Baháʼí
The Baháʼí Faith began in 19th-century Iran, teaching the unity of all religions, the oneness of humanity, and equality of women and men. The religion sees history as guided by successive divine messengers. Around 9.15 million people follow the Bahá’í Faith, spread out across most of the world’s countries and territories. But the most notable communities can be found in South Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
12. Judaism
Judaism is a combination of religious law, shared history, and peoplehood, centering on the Torah (the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) as its core text. Today’s Jewish population is roughly 14.8 million, concentrated mainly in Israel and the United States. The current Jewish population sits in the shadow of the Holocaust, when six million Jews were murdered. Even now, global Jewish numbers have only just approached the pre-1939 total of 16.6 million.
11. Spiritism and spiritualism
Modern Spiritism and spiritualism teach that spirits of the dead can communicate with the living, often through mediums using trance, speech, or automatic writing. The idea was popularized by French educator Allan Kardec in the 19th century. Around 14.81 million people are Spiritists. Brazil alone counts several million followers, where Spiritism is among the largest religions and is strongly associated with charity clinics and social assistance centers.
10. Sikhism
Sikhism began in the Punjab region of India with the teachings of Guru Nanak, a spiritual teacher born in the 15th century. The religion stresses devotion to the one God, honest work, equality, and community kitchens (called langar) that are open to everyone. There are approximately 29.3 million Sikhs worldwide, the vast majority in India. There are also vibrant diaspora communities in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Italy.
9. New Religionists
“New Religionists” doesn’t mean one single faith, but rather it’s a catch-all label for followers of new religious movements and mass religions that have appeared in much of Asia since the mid-19th century. This includes the Church of Scientology. Approximately 67.5 million people identify as part of these new religious movements. New Religionists include members of innovative groups, especially in places like Japan and South Korea. They tend to blend older traditions with fresh answers to industrialization, war, and social change.
8. Atheism
Atheism is the conviction that there is no God or gods. It overlaps with the broader “unaffiliated” category, but not everyone without a religion is an atheist, and not all atheists are outspoken about their position. About 147 million people explicitly consider themselves atheist, but this number is likely an undercount. Broader surveys suggest there are over a billion religiously unaffiliated people worldwide, with most of them living in the Asia-Pacific region.
7. Ethnic or tribal religions
Ethnic or tribal religions are tightly tied to specific peoples, lands, and cultures, whose traditions are often transmitted orally. Examples include many African traditional religions and Indigenous spiritualities in the Americas and Australia. Roughly 288 million people in this table follow such traditions, which commonly feature reverence for ancestors, belief in spirits, ritual specialists, and a sense that religion is woven into farming, healing, and community life.
6. Chinese folk religions
Chinese folk religion mixes worship of local deities, heroes, and nature spirits with ancestor veneration and elements borrowed from Buddhism and Daoism. Ultimately, it forms a flexible system rather than a single organized church. Around 458 million people are listed as Chinese folk religionists, though scholars have pointed out that counting is tricky because many people simply see these rites (like temple offerings, festival parades, and home shrines) as part of ordinary cultural life rather than religious tokenism.
5. Buddhism
Buddhism began in ancient northern India around the 6th century BCE. It was founded by Siddhartha Gautama (known as the Buddha), who taught that life is marked by suffering and that liberation comes through ethical living, meditation, and wisdom. There are around 531 million Buddhists across the planet. While the religion is concentrated mainly in countries like Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka, it has also established a foothold elsewhere in Asia, namely Afghanistan.
4. Agnosticism
Agnosticism is the belief that we don’t, or perhaps can’t, know whether God or the supernatural exists. Many people also equate agnosticism with skepticism. The term was coined by English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley in the 19th century. Around 744 million people are counted as agnostics. Many surveys group them with atheists and spiritually open “nones,” together making up about 16% of the world’s population without formal religious affiliation.
3. Hinduism
Hinduism is less a single creed and more a family of traditions rooted in the Indian subcontinent. It shares ideas like karma, rebirth, and the pursuit of liberation (called moksha) from the cycle of birth and death. There are a whopping 1.1 billion Hindus around the world, with the overwhelming majority living in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The state of Uttar Pradesh in India is particularly considered the spiritual and cultural heartland of Hinduism.
2. Islam
Islam is a religious faith that shares the same origin as Judaism, from the patriarch Abraham. It is centered on the belief that Muhammad received God’s final revelation, the Quran, calling people to worship one God and live by the Five Pillars (obligatory acts of worship). There are around 1.9 billion Muslims around the world, divided into two main branches: Sunni Islam, which comprises around 90% of the population, and Shia Islam. Large Muslim populations live in Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
1. Christianity
With a following of around 2.5 billion people, Christianity is the largest religion on the planet. The biggest denomination, accounting for around half of the populace, is Roman Catholicism. Christianity proclaims that Jesus is the Christ (Messiah) whose life, death, and resurrection bring salvation. Aside from Catholicism, major traditions also include Orthodox Christianity and Protestantism, with churches spread across every continent on the planet. Interestingly, the religion’s fastest growth is being seen in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of the Global South.
Sources: (Britannica) (Pew Research Center) (World Population Review) (Worlddata) (National Geographic Education)
See also: The wealthiest religious organizations in the world
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