In a comprehensive study of 201 countries, Singapore was ranked as the most religiously diverse country in the world, reflecting how evenly distributed its population is across the seven main faith categories.The findings reflect broader changes taking place around the world. Christians remain the largest group, with 2.3 billion people, although their share of the world’s population has declined. Muslims are the fastest growing major religion, with an increase of 347 million in the past decade. The number of Hindus increased by 126 million to 1.2 billion, stabilizing at 14.9% of the global population. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated now account for 24.2% of the world’s population, making them the third largest category, while Buddhists are the only major faith to see an absolute decline.At the other end of the diversity scale, Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia are among the least religiously diverse countries, while the Asia-Pacific region overall is the most diverse.These findings come from the Pew Research Center Report The report was released in February 2026 as part of the Pew-Templeton Global Future of Religion project, which is funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the John Templeton Foundation, and the Templeton Trust for Religion. The study used the Religious Diversity Index (RDI) to rank countries based on how evenly their populations are distributed among seven groups: Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, adherents of all other religions, and people with no religion.Ranking depends on demoGraphic estimates previously released in Pew’s 2025 report, How the global religious landscape has changed from 2010 to 2020, It combines more than 2,700 censuses and surveys. Among them, 201 countries and regions had at least 100,000 residents in 2010 or 2020, accounting for 99.98% of the global population in 2020.
How the Religious Diversity Index works
The Pew Religious Diversity Index (RDI) assigns countries a score between 0 and 10. A score of 0 represents perfect homogeneity, where the population consists entirely of one religious group. A score of 10 represents a perfectly even distribution of seven categories of people: Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, followers of other religions and people without religious affiliation, with each group accounting for approximately 14% of the population. No country scored a perfect 10.The “Other Religions” category includes faiths such as Baha’i, Taoism, Jainism, Shinto, Sikhism, Wicca, and Zoroastrianism, as well as many smaller groups, including those often described as folk or traditional religions.
The Pew Research Center’s Religious Diversity Index (RDI) rates countries from 0 to 10, measuring how evenly their populations are spread across seven religious categories.
Of the 201 countries and territories studied, eight fell into the “very high” diversity range (scores between 7.0 and 10.0). On the other hand, 41 countries were classified as having “very low” diversity, with scores below 1.0. The largest number of countries, 89, is located in the middle and belongs to medium diversity countries.
Singapore and the world’s most diverse society
With a score of 9.3, Singapore is more evenly distributed across the seven categories than any other country. Buddhists make up 31% of Singapore’s population, making them the largest group. But they are closely followed by residents with no religious affiliation (20%), Christians (19%), Muslims (16%), Hindus (5%) and followers of other religions (9%). No one group holds a majority. Suriname ranks second and is the only Latin American country in the top ten. Its population is 53% Christian, 22% Hindu, 13% Muslim, and 8% has no religion, a demographic that is shaped in part by the descendants of indentured laborers from 19th-century British India.
Singapore is the most religiously diverse country in the world, with Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, independents and people of other faiths/Pew Research Center
Most of the other countries in the top 10 are either in Asia-Pacific, Taiwan, South Korea and Australia, or in sub-Saharan Africa, Mauritius, Guinea-Bissau, Togo and Benin. France is the only European country in the top ten. Its population is 46% Christian, 43% has no religion, and 9% is Muslim, with an RDI score of 6.9. In comparison, South Korea scored 7.3 and the United States scored 5.8.
least diverse country
No country scored a perfect zero. But Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia are closest. Among them, Muslims account for 99.8% or more of the population. Overall, eight of the 10 countries and regions with the lowest levels of religious diversity have at least 99% Muslim populations. The remaining two countries, East Timor and Moldova, are almost entirely Christian.
Afghan believers participate in Friday prayers during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Friday. (File photo: Associated Press)
From a regional perspective, middle East North Africa had the lowest diversity score at 1.3. The region is 94% Muslim and includes five of the ten least diverse regions in the world: Yemen, Morocco, Western Sahara, Iraq and Tunisia.
What changed globally between 2010 and 2020
The study also takes a fresh look at changes in the world’s religious makeup over the past decade. Christians remain the largest religious group in the world. Their number increased by 122 million to 2.3 billion. However, the proportion of Christians in the global population fell by 1.8 percentage points to 28.8%. Muslims are the fastest growing group. Their population grew by 347 million, more than all other religions combined, and their global share rose by 1.8 percentage points to 25.6%. The number of people with no religious affiliation (commonly referred to as “the irreligious”) increased by 270 million to 1.9 billion, increasing their share of the global population to 24.2%. This growth occurred despite the group being older on average and having lower fertility rates, in part due to religious “conversions,” particularly Christian disengagement. The number of Hindus increased by 126 million to 1.2 billion, and their share of the global population remained stable at 14.9%.
An idol of the Hindu god Ganesha is immersed in water on the last day of the ten-day Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India, on Saturday, September 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
Buddhists were the only major group to decline, with their numbers falling by 19 million to 324 million, and their share of the global population falling to 4.1%. The global Jewish population increased by nearly 1 million to 14.8 million, but still accounts for about 0.2% of the world’s population, making it the smallest group in the study. All other religious populations combined account for 2.2% of the global population and are growing as the overall population grows. As of 2020, 75.8% of the world’s population identifies with a religion, while 24.2% identifies with no religion. In 2010, the figures were 76.7% and 23.3% respectively.
Diversity among the world’s largest countries
Among the 10 most populous countries, each country has at least 120 million people, accounting for nearly 60% of the global population. The United States is the country with the most religious diversity. Christians account for 64% of the population, non-religious people account for about 30%, and the remaining 6% are Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and believers of other religions, each accounting for about 1-2%. Nigeria is the second most diverse of these large countries. Muslims and Christians each make up more than 40% of the population, making it one of the countries with the most even distribution of the two religious groups. In contrast, Pakistan is the least diverse of the ten countries. Muslims make up 97% of the population and have an RDI score of 0.8, compared to 5.8 for the United States.
Regional pattern
Asia-Pacific is the most religiously diverse region overall, with an RDI score of 8.7. No one group has a majority there. The largest group is the non-religious, accounting for about a third of the region’s population. The area has large populations of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and followers of other religions; the Jewish presence is relatively small. North America (6.0), sub-Saharan Africa (5.9) and Europe (5.6) are classified as highly diverse. In these areas, Christians are the majority. The second largest group, accounting for at least a quarter of the population, includes the religiously unaffiliated in North America and Europe and Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa. Latin America and the Caribbean falls into the medium category, with an RDI score of 3.1. The area is majority Christian, with a smaller proportion of residents having no religious affiliation.
