The world's religious make-up

RELIABLE data on the age and whereabouts of the religious and irreligious are hard to come by, which makes a new report on the topic from the Pew Research Centre welcome. Among its many findings is that Jews and Buddhists make the biggest religious minorities, in the sense of living in a country where another religion is dominant. Asia has by far the largest number of people who claim not to believe in any religion, something that is explained by China's official godlessness. Despite this, though, China has the world's seventh-largest Christian population, estimated at 68m. The report also contains data on people who call themselves religious but do not adhere to any of the Abrahamic religions, Hinduism or Buddhism. Here again Asia is dominant, largely thanks to the popularity of Shintoism in Japan.