World Religions Explorer

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in 2020

Over time — click to jump

World Religions Explorer

A living map of the world's faiths. Each country is coloured by its majority religion; hover for the full proportional mix. Drag the slider — or hit play — to watch the religious landscape change from antiquity to today, with projections to 2100.

Please read: figures are approximate and illustrative. Modern data (1945–2020) draws on Pew Research and the World Religion Project; deep-history figures are best-effort scholarly estimates. The map uses modern borders at all eras as a visualization device — ancient peoples and empires, not today's nations, occupied that land. Composition counts resident populations (including expatriates), as Pew does.

Sources: Pew Research Center · World Religion Project (Maoz & Henderson, ARDA) · Our World in Data · historical scholarship. Borders: Natural Earth. Globe: globe.gl.

Welcome to World Religions Explorer

See how the world's faiths have spread and changed — from antiquity to a projection for 2100.

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Travel through time. Drag the slider or press play; the map updates live. Hit Today to jump back to now.

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Click any country for its full religious breakdown and a trend chart across history.

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The left panel is the world breakdown — click a faith to highlight where it's strongest.

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Globe or flat map. Switch in the ☰ menu (top-right). The flat map fills each country proportionally.

Figures are approximate & illustrative; modern borders are shown at every era as a visual device. See About (in the menu) for sources.

🗺️ The flat map

Every country is filled proportionally by faith — so you see each nation's whole religious mix at a glance, not just its majority.

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Proportional fill. Each country fills from the bottom up by share. A nation that's 70% Christian & 30% Muslim shows the bottom 70% purple, the top 30% green — the taller a colour, the bigger that faith.

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Zoom & pan. Scroll to zoom in (small countries become readable) and drag to move around. Recentre via ☰ → Reset view.

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Hover any country for its exact percentages; click for the full breakdown and a trend chart over time.

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Highlight a faith — click one in the left panel to shade the whole map by that religion's share. Globe view is in the ☰ menu.

This is a flat (equirectangular) projection, so areas near the poles look stretched (Greenland, Antarctica), and a couple of countries that cross the date line (Russia, Fiji) can smear sideways.

World religions over time

Population-weighted share of world adherents, antiquity → 2100. Click the chart to jump to that era.

Deep-history figures weight present-day populations and are illustrative; modern data draws on Pew Research & the World Religion Project. 2030–2100 are projections.