Most Christians live in countries where Christians are in the majority, but nearly 208 million (10%) live in countries where they are a religious minority. If all these Christians were in a single country, it would have the second-largest Christian population in the world, after the United States.
More than 80% of the Christians who live as religious minorities around the world are found in just 10 countries. China has the world’s largest Christian-minority population, although Christians make up only about 5% of China’s total population. Indeed, China probably has more Christians than any European nation except Russia. (See Appendix C [PDF] for more details on the range of estimates available for China.)
Of the 232 countries and territories included in this study, 158 have Christian majorities. However, most of the Christian-majority countries are relatively small: about seven-in-ten have fewer Christians than the Christian-minority country Vietnam (7 million Christians).
All 51 countries in the Americas have a Christian majority. In Europe, 46 of the 50 countries have a Christian majority, as do 34 of the 51 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and 27 of the 60 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.7 Christians are a minority, however, in all 20 countries in the Middle East-North Africa.
Footnotes:
7 The newly independent country of South Sudan, which has a Christian majority, is considered part of sub-Saharan Africa in this report. (return to text)
