Why not daily, or weekly or monthly … Quarterly updates are not only opportunities to introduce completely new features or fields or modules to the Database, as is often the case, but every update inherently includes the results of a further three months of research.
The latest languages to receive scripture translations and the subsequent distribution of scriptures data are included in the regular updates this quarter.
The World Evangelization Research Center collected data across multiple disciplines, having found each to have its own impact on world evangelization ...
The inclusion of this analysis by races, peoples, tribes, and cultures is an affirmation of the centrality of indigenous cultures to local expressions of Christianity...
Why not daily, or weekly or monthly … Quarterly updates are not only opportunities to introduce completely new features or fields or modules to the Database, as is often the case, but every update inherently includes the results of a further three months of research.
Recent citations of the World Christian Database include National Geographic, The Economist, The Washington Post, Encyclopaedia Britannica Almanac and the
The Wall Street Journal.
The World Christian Database and the World Christian Encyclopedia are world-renowned for their content quality and comprehensive view on religious statistics.
Population update
01 Jul 2021
The populations of every religion in every country are freshly reconciled following the biennial revisions of population data produced by the UN: (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2019). World Population Prospects: The 2019 Revision).
This WCD update provides the latest reconciliation of statistics on Christian denominations and world religions together with projections of all religious adherents for 2020, 2025 and 2050.
This update to the 2019 revision was purposely delayed so that this online WCD data would match the data printed in the 3rd edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia (2019) for as long as possible. While the UN's next revision is now imminent (due 2021) the significant demographic effects of COVID-19 are unlikely to be seen before the 2023 revision.
Update: The UN has pushed back the date of the next population revision from June 2021 to March 2022, with Urban prospects now not planned until 2023.
Updated to 2020
20 Jan 2020
The base year of the World Christian Database has been updated from mid-2015 to mid-2020.
This means that estimates for the number of religionists in every country of the world are now reconciled with the United Nations population projections for mid-2020. The update includes statistics on all world religions as well as Country data plus preliminary data on Peoples and Cities and Provinces.
Unless labelled otherwise, all data in WCD now refer to 2020.
Note that Christian denominations and communions remain labelled as AD 2015 until at least July, by which time the first estimates for 2020 denominations should be added, along with a second round of reconciliation of 2020 data in the Peoples table.
2020 is coming soon
01 Oct 2019
Unless otherwise specified, each field in the World Christian Database shows data in a single 'base' year which is currently 2015. In January, this base year will change so that all data for a country refer to 2020.
WCD also shows time series data about each religion from 1900 to 2050 for each country. Data for selected years across that time frame are updated quarterly, and the sample religion queries on these web pages have until now had a particular focus on growth from 2005 to 2015.
In preparation for the country base year changing to 2020 in January, the sample religion queries are changing this quarter to highlight the 20 year growth to 2020. The 2005 and 2025 data points, while still being available, are being replaced for the new default points of 2000 and 2020.
As always, users can add any available data points for their own use, but these sample queries for now will focus on 2020.
Czechia, North Macedonia, Tokelau
01 Jul 2019
This quarter includes the final instalment of a major denominational data update across all countries, as well as significant updates to smaller religions especially Jews, Bahais, Sikhs and Spiritists.
Also, changes to the official spelling of country names do not happen frequently nor lightly, but with this quarterly update the short name for the Czech Republic becomes Czechia, Macedonia becomes North Macedonia, and Tokelau Islands becomes Tokelau.
Database administrators may note that to accommodate North Macedonia's new order in the alphabet, the following country ID codes have also changed: 'mace' (Macedonia) becomes 'nmac', and 'nork' (North Korea) becomes 'nkor'. The primary keys of each country of course remain unchanged.
Why "Quarterly" Updates
01 Apr 2019
Quarterly updates are not only opportunities to introduce completely new features or fields or modules to the Database, as is often the case, but every update inherently includes the results of a further three months of research.
Changes are made almost daily to the underlying research database from the scores of sources that become available every day. But it is every three months that all these changes are freshly reconciled with each other to create the comprehensive and internally consistent picture published quarterly in the World Christian Database.
With 7 billion people growing and changing and moving every day, the population of each People group relative to others, the percentage of each religion in each People and hence in each country, the size of each denomination, and of each city and province, is constantly, and often subtly, changing.
Every day new information becomes available as to which of those subtle shifts have bubbled to the surface to become apparent and noticeable. Every day forecasts and estimates of one statistic or another are refined by researchers across the world.
The change in one statistic invariably effects others. If a denomination has turned out to be growing twice as fast as expected, it is not enough to just change that one statistic--depending on where the growth came from, other denominations or other religions will have declined, and the religious percentages of the People groups effected will also change accordingly.
A change in today's statistic may also effect estimates of past years, and will of course effect future projections.
Each quarter the picture will change because each day things are changing, but the quarterly updates should always be internally consistent and based on the latest reliable globally reconciled data.
Field research verification
01 Jan 2019
The status of Christianity in Mongolia, India, and South Korea was investigated in November 2018 when World Christian Database editor Todd Johnson, took a three-week trip to India, Mongolia, and South Korea to meet with church and mission leaders, scholars, and pastors. Along the way, he gained valuable insight to help update the demographic estimates in WCD and provide clearer portraits of these countries for the World Christian Encyclopedia , 3rd edition (due 2020).
(See photos from the research trip).
Cities updates
01 Oct 2018
Xiongan, Chiang Rai, Wollongong, and Myrtle Beach are some of the 195 cities in 49 countries are included for the first time in the 2018 edition of the United Nations listing of cities with over 300,000 people.
They represent a combination of smaller cities growing to over 300,000 for the first time, or the boundaries of cities changing (some merging and some splitting).
Most of these cities have been given an initial estimate of the percentage Christian and the percentage of the largest religion, with the remainder to follow over time.
City definitions and population source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2018). World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision.
(WCD has also made substantial improvements to the denominational data in many countries over this present quarter: this includes adding new denominations and the latest published affiliation data, and also in many countries a streamlining of smaller or more obscure denominations so the main listing includes only denominations for which recent data is reliable, while maintaining the presence of those smaller denomination names by grouping them under "other" denominations.)
Denominations in Iran
04 Jul 2018
A research focus on chuches in Iran and other Central Asia and South Asian countries has come together in the revisions published this quarter.
Visible denominations in Iran are mainly Orthodox seen in either the Armenian Apostolic Church or the smaller Assyrian Church of the East. However Muslim-background believers, who are far less visible, outnumber both with the result that the majority of Christians in Iran are not in any traditional denomination: they are independent of organized Christianity.
Without church membership records as such, estimates vary widely on the extent of people involved in such dynamic movements. Having reviewed all the published evidence and taking into account a range of opinion from informants, the number of Christians estimated for Iran in 2015 is now 547,000 across all denominations. This estimate thus effects estimates leading up to 2015 and also future projections.
New country code for renamed Eswatini Swaziland's "Legal Notice No.80 of 2018" states "The name of the Kingdom of Swaziland is changed to Kingdom of Eswatini", and this spelling and capitalization has been adopted by the United Nations Terminology Database. WCD's country code changes from 'swaz' to 'eswa'.
It's all about the data
03 Apr 2018
The World Christian Database is content-rich and while this quarter has also seen significant improvements to the data, it is the website redesign that will be most striking to returning users.
Technically the data still reside in SQL Server tables, but the software getting the data from the database to the user has been completely rewritten over these past several years by Breuer & Co. and its implementation now enables a host of new user features.
Adding or removing fields, and changing criteria to get the specific data required is easier with enhancements to the query-design feature, and user changes can now be saved to a common organizational workspace.
So start with example queries and the country index on the main page, or click the rocket icon Launchpad to see all the main topics at a glance, or enter a search term and go from there.
As always, help is available from researchers at info@globalchristianity.org (or call +1 978-468-2750) and your feedback is most welcome.
WCD Citations in 2017
01 Jan 2018
Recent citations of the World Christian Database include many articles focussing on the Reformation including in-depth essays on Luther's legacy today in The Economist ("Protestantism shaped the development of the modern liberal West. What does its current revival mean for the developing world?") and in the Christian Science Monitor"Luther’s legacy- How people use the Bible today, 500 years after a monk sparked the Protestant Reformation".
Religious demographics from WCD are often key background information for understanding world events, for example in the Wall Street Journal 's article "Pope’s Support for Muslim Refugees Faces Resistance in Myanmar", or form the basis of more detailed analysis such as Pew Forum 's "Orthodox Christianity in the 21st Century".
Links to a range of citations back to 2012 can be seen at the Center for the Study of Global Christianty's media page
Meanwhile, the major data update this quarter sees the denominations listings in many countries further streamlined by consolidating hundreds of smaller denominations (sometimes with single congregations acting autonomously while looking for international expansion) into the 'other Independent' or 'other Protestant' denominaitons. The denominations are still named, but are seen as sub-denominations of those 'other' categories.
Population update
01 Oct 2017
The populations of every religion in every country are freshly reconciled with each biennial revision of the population data produced by the UN: (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2017). World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision).
This WCD update provides the latest re-reconciliation of statistics on Christian denominations and world religions together with projections of all religious adherents for 2020, 2025, 2030 and 2050.
The pace of work on the forthcoming 3rd edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia (2020) continues to ramp up with collaborators from each of the 234 countries providing valuable input on Christian denominations and the state of the church in each country's context.
Scripture translation and distribution
01 Jul 2017
Each year Bible Societies and agencies around the world report on their work of translating the scriptures into new languages or revisions, and on the distribution of printed scripture products (Bibles, New Testaments, Portions and Selections).
Publication dates, often representing the culmination of many years translation efforts and great community celebrations, are listed in the Recent translations query on the Scripture home page.
The United Bible Societies annual report also collates distribution data from each of the individual Bible Societies. WCD reports these data as a rolling 5-year average, updated this quarter, together with estimates of non-UBS distribution. See the "Scripture" fields for adding to country-level queries such as Scriptures in the Country and Regions home page.
Middle East minority religions
01 Apr 2017
Minority religions including future projections for Northern Africa and Western Asia
Population estimates and future projections for minority religions in Northern Africa and Western Asia (including the Middle East), have been updated and re-reconciled with UN population data for each country.
The update includes revisions to the denominational database, particularly the 2015 estimates, as well as to the religious percentages of people groups in 2015 in light of migration reports documenting the refugee situation from zones of crisis.
Flowing from this, future projections for the years 2020-2050 for Christianity and other minor religions in each country have also been revised.
Cities and Christians
01 Jan 2017
Christians AD 33 to AD 1800
Estimates of the number of Christians by UN Region at significant dates from AD 33 to AD 1800 are included for the first time this quarter in a single new query Christians (in millions) by Region AD 33 to 2050 on the Chronology page. The query displays global figures by default; simply change the criteria to see data for each UN region.
Christian figures are also broken down by major tradition: Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, and Independent. The numerical growth of Protestants by Major Region in this 500th anniversary year of the Reformation can thus be viewed at key dates across the 500 years since 1517.
The Chronology page itself provides much of the documentation and historical context for these estimates by documenting the significant events in Christian history which sparked growth or decline across the centuries in each country and region. The concepts are fully discussed in Part 7 of World Christian Trends (2001) where original graphs and data include brief explanations of key turning points; for example, at the global level:
AD 30 Jesus preaches good news in Palestine
300 Church grows rapidly in Roman Empire
500 Goths, Visigoths accept Christian message
700 Islam spreads across formerly Christian lands
1200 Friars spread message across Europe
1350 Black Death kills 75 million in Europe and Asia
1400 Tamerlane wipes out Church of the East
1500 Roman Catholic missions to Africa, America, and Asia
1800 Protestant missions begin
1950 Tribal religionists convert to Christianity in large numbers.
Definition of 'Cities'
The definition of the geographic boundary which constitutes any particular city can vary widely between countries and over time. Growing cities for example at some point incorporate what were separate cities, which then become identified as a single city. Documenting the population of such cities thus largely depends on which sub-cities are included in the definition.
The WCD Cities listing now consists of the UN's 1,785 Urban Agglomerations each with over 300,000 population in 2015. Future updates will also be in accordance with the UN Population Division's World Urbanization Prospects revisions. Standardizing to the UN's definition of each city allows for more precise estimates and documented boundaries.
WCD's definition of 'Metro' has now changed from 'urban areas over 50,000' to 'urban areas over 300,000' to align with the UN's listing of Urban Agglomerations.
An archive of 8,537 WCD cities (level 1) and sub-cities (level 2) in 2010 down to 50,000 population is also available, but note that because the definition of any city may have changed between the archive and the new listing they should not be used together.
On the City/Province page see the default city listing for the latest Christian data on cities over 300,000, and see the archive listing for 2010 data on cities down to 50,000.
Denominations 2015
01 Oct 2016
New data fields have been added for Denominations in 2015 so the main reporting year for Denominations has now moved from 2010 to these new data or projections for 2015. Most denominational queries will now show affiliated membership in 2000 and in 2015, along with the 15-year growth rate. Affiliated data fields for 1970, 2005 and 2010 are still available for adding to any query, and all years are shown in each denomination's detail screen.
The new data fields cover Affiliated members, Number of Congregations, Percent Evangelical and Percent Renewalist, together with calculation fields for percentage of country and percentage of Christians.
The research process which moves from projections to hard data is well under way and will progressively cover all denominations. For example, data for each diocese of the Roman Catholic church has been updated to align with the 2016 edition of the Vatican’s Catholic Church Directory (Annuario Pontificio). Data from other denominational year books or statistical sources are added as they become available.
Evangelization, Indicators, and Anglicans
01 Jul 2016
The World Evangelization Research Center (founded in Nairobi in 1965) collected data across multiple disciplines, having found each to have its own impact on world evangelization. The World Christian Database continues today as the repository of that data, and this quarter continues the update of a number of the indicators used in the estimation of a peoples' evangelization status.
Evangelization
The concept of evangelism and evangelization has been most fully described in World Christian Trends (2001). A small but impactful change to the underlying data described there is now introduced by the splitting of the Broadcasting variable into two fields: Broadcasting and, for the first time, Online Scriptures. Online Scriptures include printed scripture languages, as well as language-specific evangelistic web sites. JESUS Film data has also been modified to a 0% to 2% impact scale based on the length of presence of the film, while other evangelistic films and gospel recordings are now included in the Audio variable.
Together with updates to the Religious Liberty, Human Development and Literacy country indicators, the combined effect has been a reduction in the estimated number of people who are unevangelized in the world from 2,156 million to 2,086 million in 2015: still fully 28% of the globe without basic access to the message of Jesus Christ.
Country indicators
As well as Religious Liberty, Human Development and Literacy (above), other indicators updated this quarter help to give the social and health context of peoples lives in each country:
Corruption Index
Water Access%
Physicians per thousand
HIV Adults per thousand
Malaria cases per thousand
GDP per capita
GNI per capita
Internet users%
Education%
Also, data describing the State Religion of each country in 2015 has been thoroughly revised.
Anglicans
Anglicans for the first time are included in the total number of Protestants rather than being reported as a separate major tradition. Anglican data can still be found in WCD for each country, alongside Lutheran, Baptist, Reformed, and other traditions summarized from the listing of all denominations. People reported on church membership rolls (particuarly from State churches) who have since "Disaffiliated" are now shown at the sub-denominational level.
A section specifically on 'counting Anglicans' has been added to WCD's methodology document.
People groups and Ethnicity
01 Apr 2016
The database's Ethnicity table is based on the work of Dr. David B. Barrett, published in the first edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia (1981) as "PART 4, CULTURE, Peoples of the world: an ethnolinguistic classification" where it is fully described in a succinct four pages of text and two pages of photos.
Introductory remarks (p.107) show the intent: The inclusion of this analysis by races, peoples, tribes, and cultures is an affirmation of the centrality of indigenous cultures to local expressions of Christianity, of the right to exist of minority tribes and peoples, of their autonomy in their own areas, of their importance from the Christian standpoint vis-a-vis the world’s dominant peoples and cultures, and of the need to reduce the imperialistic influence of these latter (especially Western culture) in non-Western local churches and lands. It is also an affirmation of the necessity to view people, not primarily as nationals of a given country, but primarily as members of the natural homogeneous units they belong to, through which they may the most effectively be described.
Barrett then cautioned (in 1981) that "the concept of different races is regarded by many scientists as outdated" (and indeed Encyclopedia Britannica's article on Geographic Race, referenced by Barrett, has since been abandoned by Britannica), but asserted "that for our purposes this classification is still valuable". As the ethnic component of the world's ethno-linguistic peoples classification, this assertion remains true.
In the absence then of any newer or better classification, Barrett's identified ethnicities have all been retained without any attempt to re-classify groups that in a new system may well be merged or separated or renamed (and some archaic terms thus remain in the notes which may help explain particular divisions). Importantly for the many organisations employing the code in their own systems, this also allows the unique underlying code itself to be retained, except that it is now displayed without the original first and third characters. A handful of cover terms have also been altered to reflect these changes.
Ethnicity (formerly labelled in the database as 'Culture') is given for each ethno-linguistic people group and together with the newly formatted ethnic code, provides a quick tool for scanning and sorting peoples of similar ethnicity without necessarily needing to refer to the code's meaning.
The first letter of the code can be used to summarize the world's 13,800 ethno-linguistic peoples into just 13 "Ethnic regions". The following digit then identifies 72 ethnic types or ethno-cultural families, and then the lower-case letter completes the identity of the original 392 Ethnicities.
Community celebrations at the launch of fresh scripture translations reflect the significance of each and every date listed in the Recent translations query on the Scripture home page.
Each year Bible Societies and agencies around the world report on their work of translating the scriptures into new languages or revisions, and on the distribution of printed scripture products (Bibles, New Testaments, Portions and Selections).
The United Bible Societies annual report also collates distribution data by country from each of the individual Bible Societies. WCD reports these data as a rolling 5-year average, updated this quarter, together with estimates of non-UBS distribution. See the "Scripture" fields for adding to country-level queries such as Scriptures in the Country and Regions home page.
Methodological update: Counting Evangelicals is the latest section of the WCD's methodology document describing four methods of counting Evangelical Christians.
Photo by Sarah Halferty of Wycliffe Bible Translators, PNG, from her web page describing the Waskia Bible Dedication.
Population update
01 Oct 2015
The populations of every religion in every country are freshly reconciled with each biennial revision of the population data produced by the UN: (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2015). World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision).
This WCD update includes the latest re-reconciliation of statistics on all Christian denominations and world religions together with projections of religious adherents for 2020, 2025, 2030 and 2050.
The update also includes over 60 new peoples groups (with more to come) which have either grown sufficiently in size to list separately in a new country, or speak a newly recognized language identified in the 17th edition of the Ethnologue.
Methodological update: Counting Pentecostals is a new section of the methodology document describing WCD's classification of “the Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal of the Holy Spirit” into three kinds or types.
Ethnologue updates
01 Jul 2015
The Ethnologue has been one of the pillars of the World Christian Database classification of ethnolinguistic peoples since before Ethnologue's 11th edition of 1988. Since then Ethnologue codes have become the basis of the ISO 639 standard for the representation of names of languages, and Ethnologue itself is now published through a combination of electronic and printed editions.
The 17th edition of the "Ethnologue: Languages of the World" dataset was published online in December 2013 and became available in print form (in 3 volumes) in late 2014. Meantime the 18th edition of the Ethnologue database has also become available online. Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2015. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Eighteenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com.
The editing cycle of the World Christian Database allows for a relatively quick update of changed Ethnologue (and hence ISO) language codes with each new online edition, while analysis and incorporation of new languages generally awaits the printed edition.
This quarter sees the addition of newly discovered languages from the Ethnologue's 17th printed edition for about half of the world's countries with the remainder to follow in October.
Methodological update: Information on the WCD's taxonomy of the world's ethno-linguistic people groups is also added this quarter to the methodology document.
Personal contact between Christians and non-Christians
01 Apr 2015
In order to estimate the number of non-Christians who have personal contact with a Christian, a formula was developed and applied to each ethnolinguistic People Group. Results were summed and presented in the Atlas of Global Christianity (2009) as regional and global totals, expressed as the number and percentage of:
Non-Christians who know a Christian
Buddhists who know a Christian
Hindus who know a Christian
Muslims who know a Christian
These data are now available in the WCD on the new Personal Contact section of the Religion home page, with sample queries showing:
a brief summary of percentages by continent
and a fuller regional summary with numbers and percentages
While these fields can be seen under the ‘Personal Contact’ tabs in the detail screen of each Country and could also be added by users to any query at the Country level, it is suggested that reporting would be most helpful when confined to regional, continental or global totals.
Brief methodological notes are extracted from the Atlas of Global Christianity, Edinburgh University Press, 2009, p.350.
The Christian Finance query shows data added this quarter from the World Bank (as reported in the UN's Human Development Report, 2014) being applied to estimate the total Christian income by continent and globe with a drill-down to the country level.
The simple assumption is that each person's income is the same as each country's Gross National Income per person. Within any one country no assumptions are made as to whether Christians have more or less income than others, but when aggregated to regions and the globe the weighting of many Christians in countries with higher incomes becomes apparent.
The results indicate that the personal income of church members in 2015 is in the order of 42,000 billion dollars.
Global Directory of Theological Education Institutions
01 Oct 2014
The Global Directory of Theological Education Institutions is an online database of more than 7,000 institutions of theological education (church-based theological seminaries, Bible schools, university departments of theology, faculties of religious studies).
This new module allows World Christian Database users to search for institutions or browse though selected listings by using links on the new Theological Education Directory home page. A link to this displays on the main query home page as "Theological Education".
Advanced searches can be carried out from any of the sample queries by adding a combination of search terms for any of the fields in the institution's profile including:
Denomination/Affiliation
Type of institution
Language of instruction
Town/city, state and country
Region of the main office and the geographical scope of work
Degrees offered
Accrediting body
Narrative
The data are a snapshot of the directory at Globethics.net where authorized users can update the details of their own institution.
Least evangelized Peoples
01 Jul 2014
Every five years the Center for the Study of Global Christianity publicly releases a benchmark for tracking the globe's least evangelized peoples.
The listing, included in this quarter's update, is a definitive statement on the globe’s largest unevangelized peoples. It lists 247 ethnolinguistic peoples each with a population over 1 million and each with less than 50% evangelized in the year 2015.
It shows that almost two thirds of the population of 1.4 billion people in these least evangelized megapeoples have essentially no knowledge of Jesus Christ's life and claims. With one Christian for every 100 people, the 14 million Christians living among them overall are a tiny minority.
In fact, the five least evangelized megapeoples have not a single known Christian amongst 6 million people: the Bakhtiari of Iran; the Beja (Beni-Amer) of Sudan; the Dimili Kurd (Southern Zaza) of Turkey; the Southern Luri (Lori) of Iran; and the Laki (Leki, Alaki) also of Iran.
The full list can be seen from the World A Megapeoples link on the People's home page. As with all queries, it is immediately sortable by any of the fields displayed, and subscribers can add fields or change criteria to customize the listing.
Martyrs 2000-2010
01 Jul 2014
Each year approximately 100,000 believers in Christ have lost their lives prematurely, in situations of witness, as a result of human hostility in the first 10 years of this century.
The Current martyr situations (2000-2010) query documents the 16 largest martyr situations from AD 2000 to 2010, extending documentation already published for AD 33 to AD 2000 on the Martyrs home page.
A Summary of all Epochs extends the research originally published in World Christian Trends and furthers "the evidence for the startling conclusion that, over the 20 centuries of the Christian faith, some 70 million Christians have been murdered for that faith and hence are called martyrs."
Updated to 2015 plus documentation revision.
01 Apr 2014
The core religious data of the World Christian Database has been updated from mid-2010 to mid-2015.
Estimates for the number of religionists in every country of the world are now reconciled with the United Nations population projections for mid-2015. The update includes statistics on all world Religions as well as the Peoples and Country tables, and preliminary data for Cities and Provinces.
Unless labelled otherwise, all data in WCD now refer to 2015.
Note that Christian denominations and communions remain labelled as AD 2010 and will remain so until the first estimates for 2015 denominations become available. Also, note that religions by province for 2015 is preliminary data and full reconciliation of religions in the Province table with the Country tables should follow next quarter.
New projections of religious adherents for 2020, 2025, 2030 and 2050 are also included in this update.
Revised methodology document The Methodology of the World Christian Database document has been revised to include material from Todd M. Johnson and Brian J. Grim, The World’s Religions in Figures: An Introduction to International Religious Demography (Oxford: Wiley--Blackwell, 2013).
South-Central Asia, 2030, Independents and Evangelicals
01 Jan 2014
Four important but unrelated changes are included in this quarter’s update:
The former UN region of South-Central Asia is split, allowing estimates for Central Asia to now be shown separately from those of South Asia.
The year 2030 is added as an extra data point, so that the religion over time series now includes the years 1900, 1950, 1970, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020, 2025, 2030 and 2050.
The “Independent” Christian major tradition now includes the former “Marginal Christian” category which is being retired. (See the January 2014 edition of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research).
The category “Great Commission Christians” which was also labeled “evangelicals” (with a lower case ‘e’) is also being retired, partly to avoid confusion with the ongoing category ‘Evangelicals’ (with a capital ‘E’). A forthcoming article will explain the rationale and implications.
Population update
01 Oct 2013
The populations of every religion in every country are reconciled with each biennial revision of the population data produced by the UN: (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2013). World Population Prospects: The 2012 Revision).
This WCD update includes the latest re-reconciliation of statistics on all Christian denominations and world religions including Peoples and Provinces.
New projections of religious adherents for 2025 and 2050 proceed from this.
This revision also sees the former Netherlands Antilles split into three new countries: "Curacao", "Sint Maarten" (the Dutch part of the island of St. Martin) and the "Caribbean Netherlands" (comprising the BES Islands: Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba).
Why "Quarterly" Updates
01 Jul 2013
Quarterly updates are not only opportunities to introduce completely new features or fields or modules to the Database, as is often the case, but every update inherently includes the results of a further three months of research.
Changes are made almost daily to the underlying master database from the scores of sources that become available every day. But it is every three months that all these changes are freshly reconciled with each other to create the comprehensive and internally consistent picture published quarterly in the World Christian Database.
With 7 billion people growing and changing and moving every day, the population of each People group relative to others, the percentage of each religion in each People and hence in each country, the size of each denomination, and of each city and province, is constantly, and often subtly, changing.
Every day new information becomes available as to which of those subtle shifts have bubbled to the surface to become apparent and noticeable. Every day forecasts and estimates of one statistic or another are refined by researchers across the world.
The change in one statistic invariably effects others. If a denomination has turned out to be growing twice as fast as expected, it is not enough to just change that one statistic--depending on where the growth came from, other denominations or other religions will have declined, and the religious percentages of the People groups effected will also change accordingly.
A change in today's statistic may also effect estimates of past years, and will of course effect future projections.
Sometimes whole sets of underlying data change at once, and an example of this is the publication of the 17th edition of the Ethnologue which provides a new set of language statistics with newly discovered languages, some languages becoming extinct or merging with others, some split into two or more languages. Each new or changed piece of language information may result in religious composition changes which ripple through the present year to past and future years.
Sets of data like the Ethnologue, or new country censuses or surveys can take many days or weeks to analyze and process into a coherent picture. (Preliminary results from the new Ethnologue data should be available in October).
Each quarter the picture will change because each day things are changing, but the quarterly updates should always be internally consistent and based on the latest reliable globally reconciled data.
2015 and 2020
01 Apr 2013
Data on the adherents of each religion in each country are now available for the additional two data points of 2015 and 2020.
The religion over time series now includes the years 1900, 1950, 1970, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020, 2025 and 2050.
The additional years are part of the preparation for changing the "base year" of the World Christian Database from 2010 to 2015, a move that is planned to take place in 2014.
Until then, the additional years do not appear by default in the sample religion queries, but they are available for users to add as required.
See in particular the Religion over time home page for sample queries to which 2015 and 2020 can be added.
Also, a topical sample spreadsheet (available for a limited time) showing Roman Catholics by UN Region, 1900-2020 utilizes the new 2020 data and includes 50-year and 10-year average annual growth rates to 2020.
Evangelicals 1970-2010
01 Jan 2013
Evangelicals are defined in the World Christian Database as "a subdivision mainly of Protestants consisting of all affiliated church members calling themselves Evangelicals, or all persons belonging to Evangelical congregations, churches or denominations; characterized by commitment to personal religion."
Some denominations are thus 100% Evangelical through their membership of bodies like the World Evangelical Alliance. Other denominations have smaller evangelical movements within them: individuals who identify as an Evangelical or who also attend an evangelical denomination.
Six new fields show the percentage and total number of affiliated Christians in 1970, 2000, and 2005 who are Evangelical, for each denomination. This extends the available time frame back from the 2010 data which was made available last year.
The fields are available for adding to any query that includes denominations data, and can also be seen in the 'Renewal' tab of the Denominations detail screens.
There is also a sample query called "Evangelicals by Denomination over time" on the Denominations home page. In some denominations the percentage change over time appears very small, and so the raw total numbers give a better impression of growth.
Renewal over time
01 Oct 2012
Renewal in the Holy Spirit: 1970-2010
Six new fields for each denomination show the percentage and total number of affiliated Christians participating in the Renewal in the Holy Spirit in 1970, 2000 and 2005. This extends the sequence from the 2010 data which was made available last year.
Pentecostal denominations are, by definition, 100% Renewalist, as are many Independent denominations, while percentages have been applied for the remaining Protestant, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Anglican traditions.
The fields are available for adding to any query that includes denominations data, and can also be seen in the 'Renewal' tab of the Denominations detail screens.
There is also a sample query called "Renewal by Denomination over time" on the Denominations home page. In some denominations the percentage change over time appears very small, and so the raw total numbers give a better impression of growth.
Country memberships
01 Jul 2012
A new feature of the World Christian Database allows analysis of data by groups of countries.
The group could be an intergovernmental organization such as NATO, or a geographic region such as the Middle East, or a group of countries with common history such as "Post World War 2 independence states".
What is the largest religion in Commonwealth of Nations countries?
What intergovernmental organization has the lowest life expectancy across all its member countries?
Which "Organisation of Islamic Cooperation" member states are predominantly Christian?
Are there more Orthodox Christians in "OPEC" or the "Pacific Community"? (both with populations totalling about 400 million)
See the new Country membership home page for all the sample queries. Users can also add "Country memberships" fields to existing queries to allow group selection in any query based on the country table.
Daily religious change
01 Apr 2012
New fields in the religion tables report the 24-hour population change by religion in each country and region and globally.
For example, every day on average over the last 10 years the global Christian population increased by 76,000 people and the Muslim population increased by 72,000 people. The 24-hour change at the end of the period, in 2010, is even higher: 86,000 Christians and 81,000 Muslims.
The two fields are called "Daily change 2000-2010" and "Daily change in 2010" can also be added by users to any queries that show religion-over-time. The average figure is better for looking back at the 2000-2010 period, while the 2010 figure is more useful for discussions in the present.
(For simplicity, only the average daily change is included in the sample queries. The "Daily change 2000-2010" can be thought of as the average change over the full 10 years, and is simply the total increase per year divided by 365.25. "Daily change in 2010" can be thought of as a more "Current" daily change, and is calculated by applying the rate of increase in the 2000-2010 period to the population in 2010.)
Evangelicals by denomination
01 Jan 2012
Evangelicals are defined in the World Christian Database as "a subdivision mainly of Protestants consisting of all affiliated church members calling themselves Evangelicals, or all persons belonging to Evangelical congregations, churches or denominations; characterized by commitment to personal religion."
Some denominations are thus 100% Evangelical through their membership of bodies like the World Evangelical Alliance. Other denominations have smaller evangelical movements within them: individuals who identify as an Evangelical or who also attend an evangelical denomination.
Two new fields show the percentage and total number of affiliated Christians in 2010 who are Evangelical, for each denomination.
The fields are available for adding to any query that includes denominations. See for example the query "Evangelicals by Denomination" on the Denominations home page.
Renewal by denomination
01 Oct 2011
Renewal in the Holy Spirit
Two new fields for each denomination show the percentage and total number of affiliated Christians participating in the Renewal in the Holy Spirit in 2010.
Denominational data, which have always been used to calculate the WCD's country totals for renewalists, are shown here by denomination for the first time. Pentecostal denominations are, by definition, 100% Renewalist, as are many Independent denominations, while percentages have been applied for the remaining Protestant, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Anglican traditions.
The fields are available for adding to any denominations based query, or see the new section "Renewal by Denomination" on the Denominations home page.
Population and Provinces
01 Jul 2011
Four major revisions are included in the WCD this quarter.
1. WCD has been updated to reflect the latest population revisions from the United Nations.
The number of religionists in every country of the world are reconciled with each biennial revision of the population data produced by the United Nations population division.
This update includes the latest re-reconciliation of statistics on all Christian denominations and world religions including Peoples and Provinces.
2. The world's provinces have been updated with many hundreds of changes to province names and borders, and the resulting changes in the Christian situation.
3. The Republic of South Sudan is added as the world's latest country, with independence from July 9th.
4. Preliminary results from a year-long study into the demographics of the Pentecostal, Charismatic and Neo-Charismatic renewal of the Church can now be seen in country data, and over coming quarters will be shown by denomination.
Chronology extended
01 Apr 2011
A chronology of world Christianity: extended
The chronology has now been extended back in time to cover the Old Testament period from BC 3000 to the birth of Christ. The Chronology home page now shows 8,200 significant Christian and religious events from BC 3000 through to AD 2000.
Search for topics of interest by keyword or by year, or just browse through the centuries.
Chronology entries can also be found and viewed by topic through the "search" mechanism. Enter a term as usual into the seach box and follow the returned Chronology references.
Also this quarter, preliminary results from a major review of pentecostal and charismatic denominations are incorporated for many hundred denominations. Full results for the global renewal movement will follow in coming months.
Peoples research
01 Jan 2011
As people groups change so does the country’s religious makeup.
Changes to the proportion of particular ethnic or language groups within a country, through migration or through varying birth rates and rates of death, all contribute, people-group by people-group, to changes in the religious makeup of a country.
Quite apart from tracking the conversion of individuals to different religions and hence changing religious affiliation within a people group, these demographic changes of peoples between countries are constantly under review in the WCD research process.
This quarter the results of primarly people-group oriented reseach in countries up to the letter ‘J’ have led to widespread and often subtle edits in countries all over the world.
The research process continues.
Netherlands Antilles
10 Oct 2010
10th October, 2010: Netherlands Antilles officially ceases to exist.
Two of its former provinces (Curacao and St Maarten) have become autonomous countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands (like Aruba in 1986), and the other three (Bonaire, St Eustatius, and Saba) become autonomous special municipalities within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The presentation of the Netherlands Antilles will remain in the database until official UN population estimates for 1950-2050 are produced for the two new countries, and the municipalities are added into the Netherlands.
Martyrdom
01 Oct 2010
The demographics of Christian martyrdom, AD 33–AD 2001
This new module for the World Christian Database presents data originally published in World Christian Trends as: "the evidence for the startling conclusion that, over the 20 centuries of the Christian faith, some 70 million Christians have been murdered for that faith and hence are called martyrs."
Work continues on adding to this section the period 2001-2010, since it is often the case that much time passes before the worst situations even become known. This module thus presents data initially to the turn of the millennium.
This new home page entitled "Martyrs" is accessible through a link on the main home page.
Global Plans
07 Jul 2010
Global Plans
The new Global Plans home page "enumerates and evaluates 1,500 plans, proposals, visions, goals, methods, schemes, schemas, programs, structures, groups, organizations, promises, pledges, calls, appeals, slogans, mottos, documents, reports, publications, events, conferences, resolutions, statements, intents, or attempts, all related specifically or clearly to implementing world evangelization."
860 plans from AD 30-AD 2000 are listed in detail and a further 650 are categorized to enable the user to assess the many strategies for world evangelization that were being pursued by the Christian world up to the symbolic date of AD 2000.
Denominations, languages, countries
31 Mar 2010
Denominations 2010 New data fields have been added for Denominations in 2010 so the main reporting year for Denominations has now moved from 2005 to these projections for 2010. Most denominational queries will now show affilated membership in 2000 and in 2010, along with the 10-year growth rate. Affiliated data fields for 1970 and 2005 are still available for adding to any query, and all years are shown in a denomination's detail screen.
Ethnologue 16th Edition In the Peoples and Languages queries, all Ethnologue codes were previously translated into 16th Edition codes, and now new languages defined in the 16th Edtion Ethnologue have been added to most countries, resulting in many newly defined people groups.
Country names This quarter sees the completion of country name and code changes to bring WCD countries into even closer alignment with the United Nations list of countries.
The population demographics underlying the WCD come directly from the UN, with the exception of Kosovo (which is extracted from Serbia's UN population) and Taiwan (which is extracted from China's UN population). WCD now lists 232 countries. Technical notes are shown below:
The links above provide a detailed religious picture for these countries (plus Antarctica) for the year 2000 in the form of extracts from the World Christian Encyclopedia (2001).
Two special administrative areas are separated out from China by the UN, now appearing as countries: 'Hong Kong' (code hong)
'Macau' (code maca)
Six WCD countries have been renamed and their country codes changed for the new alphabetical order: What was 'Britain' (code brit) BECOMES 'United Kingdom' (code unik)
What was 'Ivory Coast' (code ivor) BECOMES 'Cote d'Ivoire' (code cote)
What was 'Sahara' (code saha) BECOMES 'Western Sahara' (code west)
What was 'USA' (code usa) BECOMES 'United States' (code unis)
What was 'Virgin Is of the US' (code virg) BECOMES 'United States Virgin Is' (code univ)
'Uruguay' changes its code from 'uuay' TO 'urug'
Six countries have had the spelling of their short country name changed or expanded: What was 'Antigua' BECOMES 'Antigua & Barbuda'
What was 'DR Congo' BECOMES 'Congo DR'
What was 'Timor' BECOMES 'Timor-Leste'
What was 'British Virgin Is' BECOMES 'British Virgin Islands'
What was 'Central African Rep' BECOMES 'Central African Republic'
What was 'Wallis & Futuna Is' BECOMES 'Wallis & Futuna Islands'
Updated to 2010
01 Jan 2010
The core religious data of the World Christian Database has been updated from mid-2005 to mid-2010.
This means that estimates for the number of religionists in every country of the world are now reconciled with the United Nations population projections for mid-2010. The update includes statistics on all world religions as well as the peoples (first round of projections), cities, provinces and country tables.
Unless labelled otherwise, all data in WCD now refer to 2010 and this update includes two new data points (1950 and 2010) which have been added to the religious change over time tables for all countries.
Note that Christian denominations and communions remain labelled as AD 2005 until the next quarterly update in April when the first estimates for 2010 denominations will be added, along with a second round of reconcilliation of 2010 data in the Peoples table.
Included in this update are new projections of religious adherents for 2025 and 2050.
Population update
01 Oct 2009
The number of religionists in every country of the world are reconciled with each biennial revision of the population data produced by the United Nations population division.
This update includes the latest re-reconciliation of statistics on all Christian denominations and world religions including Peoples and Provinces.
New projections of religious adherents for 2025 and 2050 proceed from this.
Denominations in South Korea
22 Jul 2009
Preliminary results from four surveys in South Korea are posted this quarter including denominations recorded for the first time, and updates to congregation counts and membership of existing denominations:
2002 Hanguk-ui Jonggyo Sanghwang (2002 Status of Korean Religions),
Denomination Statistics, 2002 (Council of Churches in Korea),
Denomination Statistics, 2005 (Council of Churches in Korea), and
2008 Hanguk-ui Jonggyo Sanghwang (2008 Status of Korean Religions).
The surveys provide raw data which must first be reconciled between denominations, to account for differences in the way denominations report their membership, and reconciled with the overall number of Christians in the country, to account for dual memberships. The resulting 'best estimates' are presented here for many denominations, with more to follow next quarter as reconciliation is completed.
Malaria cases per thousand of a country's population is a new field added to the WCD this quarter, along with updated data for the number of adults with HIV per thousand, the number of Physicians per thousand, and the percentage of people with acceptable Access to Water.
Together with data on Life Expectancy and Infant Mortality (which were updated Jan, 2008), these 6 fields provide a broad insight into the major health factors effecting each nation.
See the "Health" query on the "Country / Region home page"..
Belarus, Moldova, Kyrgystan and Indonesia
02 Jan 2009
Changes to the official spelling of country names do not happen frequently nor lightly, but with this quarterly update Belorussia becomes Belarus, Moldavia becomes Moldova, and Kirgistan becomes Kyrgystan.
Belorussia to Belarus (Belorussia is considered an inappropriate name in English because of the Soviet period)
Moldavia to Moldova (Moldavia refers to the Medieval kingdom and also has Soviet baggage)
Kirgizstan to Kyrgyzstan (The Economist used the first for a while but has now abandoned it)
Database administrators linking to the WCD should note that these changes have altered the alphabetical order of Belarus and Kyrgyzstan, and hence the country codes of these two countries have also changed to suit. For Belarus 'belo' becomes 'bela' and for Kyrgyzstan 'kirg' becomes 'kyrg'.
Religion in Indonesia
Other substantial data updates have been incorporated across many countries this quarter from new Census data and from a refinement of working definitions.
The most notable recategorization is to the religion of many Indonesians from being termed New Religionists to being termed Muslims. This change recognizes that the weighting of what is often a syncretistic mix of beliefs and practices can shift over time from being properly termed a 'New religion with Islamic influence', to being 'Islam with syncretistic practices'.
This change highlights once again that the World Christian Database is complete in itself for historical data and should not be compared even with it's own earlier versions. For example, to see how religion in Indonesia has changed between 2000 and 2005, one should use the "religion over time" queries in this present version (which has both those years and more), rather than refer to earlier versions for the 2000 data.
Chronology
01 Oct 2008
A chronology of world Christianity
The Chronology home page introduces subscribers to a comprehensive chronology of over 7,500 significant Christian and religious events from the birth of Christ to AD 2000.
Search for topics of interest by keyword or by year, or just browse through the centuries.
Chronology entries can also be found and viewed by topic through the "search" mechanism. Enter a term as usual into the seach box and follow the returned Chronology references.
Detailed examples and church membership
01 Jul 2008
We have revamped the Detailed Examples home page by adding new queries that illustrate the breadth of information in the World Christian Database.
One example is Buddhist peoples outside Asia which shows the impact of emigration (sorting on mid-2005 reveals the largest as the Vietnamese of the USA). Another approach is Muslim Peoples of Southern Europe, a filter that spotlights Muslim peoples in a particular UN region.
Both of these examples can be adjusted by changing criteria (another religion or another region).
In addition, we have continued updating church membership figure for mid-2005 as published reports increasingly become available to replace projections from earlier years.
Church membership
01 Apr 2008
Most countries have had a significant strengthening of their 2005 church membership data, as published reports increasingly become available to replace projections from earlier years.
It is a fact of research life that statistics are usually required for 'the present' but there is a significant time lag between when statistics are gathered and when they can be published. Census data, for example, often takes several years from the time of the data collection to the time of first publication. In the meantime, population estimates are made by projecting data from previous years.
The World Christian Database is now in the final stages of consolidating global denominational membership with published membership data for the year 2005. This, together with it's earlier consolidated position for the year 2000, will provide a solid basis for projection to 2010 which in time will become WCD's next 'base year'.
Kosovo and Serbia
19 Feb 2008
On Sunday 17 February 2008 the Kosovo Assembly issued a Declaration of Independence stating: "We, the democratically-elected leaders of our people, hereby declare Kosovo to be an independent and sovereign state."
Serbian President Boris Tadic responded that Serbia "will do everything in its power to annul the arbitrary and illegal declaration of Kosovo's independence that Serbia will never recognise."
While Kosovo, Serbia, and the world community work to resolve the implications of the Declaration, Kosovo has become the 240th entry in the World Christian Database list of countries, which includes non-sovereign territories.
Data on Kosovo, including all Christian denominations and the wider religious makeup, have been extracted from the Serbian data and both updated so that the two can be analyzed separately.
The number of religionists in every country of the world are reconciled with each biennial revision of the population data produced by the United Nations population division.
This update includes the latest re-reconciliation of statistics on all Christian denominations and world religions including Peoples and Provinces.
New projections of religious adherents for 2025 and 2050 proceed from this.
WCD Citations in 2007
10 Dec 2007
National Geographic 1-Dec-07
States of Faith Map and Graph of Religious Followers by % of population, 2005
The Economist 3-Nov-07
In God's Name Graph of What the World Believes
The Washington Post 7-Oct-07
In the World's Rural Outposts, A Shortwave Channel to God Religious demography of Mozambique
Encyclopaedia Britannica Almanac 1-Oct-07
The 2007 Annual Megacensus of Religions Worldwide Adherents of All Religions, mid 2007
The Wall Street Journal 20-Sep-07
Episcopal Church Dissidents Seek Authority Overseas Graph of Christian Faiths around the World, 2005
Reuters 6-Aug-07
Preaching Transformation, U.S sect Goes Global Pentecostalism claims global following of 500 million.
The Washington Post 25-Jun-07
Seeking Answers with Field Trips in Faith 7% of the world's Christians--about 150 million--are on the move as pilgrims each year
The New Republic 4-Jun-07
The Believers 70 million Christians have been martyred since beginning of faith
The Economist 5-May-07
Lighting on New Faiths or None More than 80% of Latin Americans are still Catholic but the figure steadily is declining
The New York Times 19-Mar-07
Brazil's Top TV Preachers Land in Hot Water in Miami Brazil has overtaken the U.S. as the country with the largest Pentecostal population
Ottawa Citizen 3-Mar-07
China and the Rise of Faith: How Christianity Builds Democracy World Christian Trends places China as 4th largest Christian country in the world
CBS2-Los Angeles News 17-Feb-07
More Christians Attending Small House Churches House churches won't take over traditional ones but will be around a long time
The New York Times 14-Jan-07
House Afire- 3 Part Series Graphs of Pentecostal Population in NYC, all 50 U.S States, and worldwide
The Economist 23-Dec-06
Christianity Reborn Renewalists make up a quarter of world's population, 30 years ago it was 6%
Scripture translations
01 Oct 2007
Languages which have received scripture translations for the first time, as well as new books or major revisions in existing scripture languages, are report annually in the United Bible Societies' Scripture Language Report (UBS, 2006). This report has been coded here for the World Language Classification and is now incorporated into the World Christian Database.
Availability of scripture is a major factor in a People's evangelization (hearing the good news about God directly from God's Word) so results from these additional translations are seen in data changes across the Database.
e.g. Languages with a book of the Bible, or New Testament or a whole Bible published in 2005 or 2006 can be seen by subscribers in this query: "Languages with fresh translations".
Census update
20 Jul 2007
About half of the world’s governments ask a question about religion in their decennial censuses. We have recently incorporated data from censuses taken from 2000 to 2006. Many of these censuses also ask questions related to ethnicity and language. We have used this information to update our understanding of the world’s peoples and their relation to religion.
Brill publisher of the WCD
23 Apr 2007
We are proud to announce that as of today Brill is the exclusive publisher of the World Christian Database.
Founded in 1683 in Leiden, the Netherlands, Brill is a leading international academic publisher in the fields of Biblical and Religious Studies, Jewish Studies, Middle East and Islamic Studies, Social Sciences, as well as various other disciplines. With offices in Leiden and Boston (MA), Brill publishes more than a hundred journals and around five hundred new books and reference works each year. For more information about Brill please visit www.brill.nl.
We expect the World Christian Database and its users to benefit from Brill's long-time experience as a major publisher in the field of Religious Studies. Brill publishes several relevant titles which in the future will be linked to the World Christian Database in order to further enrich it. By using Brill's distribution network we will be able to better reach the international academic market and make the World Christian Database an even more widely-used resource. Of course, Brill and the World Christian Database team remain dedicated to offer you the best and most up-to-date information on world religion and global Christianity.
Ethnologue code update
22 Sep 2006
Ethnologue codes are provided here to help users of the Ethnologue link to World Christian Database language data in the Peoples and Languages sections.
The 15th edition of the Ethnologue included extensive changes to the language code. 15th edition Ethnologue codes are, by convention, lower case to distinguish them from the upper case codes used in the 14th and earlier editions.
Search results
05 Jul 2005
The simple search mechanism on the home page has recently been enhanced to include field names, dictionary entries and glossary terms, so there is more chance of finding what you're looking for.
Also, commonly searched-for terms that previously returned no results have been examined and hints provided for alternative search terms. Monitoring of search success will continue.
The real power of the online World Christian Database however remains in the ability to interrogate the data tables directly with user supplied criteria on almost any field. The home pages (Languages, Peoples, Religions etc.) each provide sample queries which can be altered by adding fields or selection criteria.
Christian Communions and Councils
27 May 2005
Each denomination has been coded by its membership of various Christian communions and councils and this data is now available to subscribers.
Christian Communions are made up of denominations with a similar ecclesiastical tradition, while Christian Councils include all participant churches at a given geographic level (world, continental, regional or national).
Subscribers can access the data on the Denominations home page through a known denomination, or through the section which lists the coded Communions and Councils.
Either pick a communion and drill to list its denominations, or pick a denomination and click to see its Communions and Councils.
Updated to 2005
08 Sep 2004
The core religious data of the World Christian Database has been updated from mid-2000 to mid-2005. This means that estimates for the number of religionists in every country of the world are now reconciled with the United Nations population projections for mid-2005. The update includes statistics on all Christian denominations and world religions, as well as trends between 2000 and 2005. In addition, the peoples and provinces databases have been updated to mid-2005. Cities will be updated in the coming weeks. Included in this update are new projections of religious adherents for 2025 and 2050.
World Christian Database Highly Acclaimed
01 Jan 2004
The World Christian Database and the World Christian Encyclopedia are world-renowned for their content quality and comprehensive view on religious statistics.
Here are a few quotations:
The World Christian Encyclopedia leaves no stone unturned when it comes to the current state of Christianity in the world…Why add this to your reference collection? Simply put, it is the best statistical work on the current state of Christianity to come along in the 20 years since the World Christian Encyclopedia was first published… Students and faculty alike will be able to answer many factual questions related to Christianity and missions. But the sheer amount of information compiled will also lend itself to individual analysis of what is happening in the world today. The World Christian Database is a 'must have' for every library.
- The American Theological Library Association (ATLA)
The World Christian Encyclopedia combines remarkably well scientific objectivity and tolerance with a quiet evangelical faith...the authors have served modern social science and religious believers equally well with this magisterial work.
