- Summary
- Adherents
- Religious Freedom
- Socio-economic
- Public Opinion
Religious Adherents1 |
Australia | Australia/New Zealand | World |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baha'i | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.1% |
| Buddhist | 2.1% | 2.1% | 5.8% |
| Chinese Universalist | 0.5% | 0.5% | 5.8% |
| Christian | 76.6% | 75.8% | 33.3% |
| Confucianist | 0.3% | 0.2% | 0.1% |
| Ethnoreligionist | 0.3% | 0.4% | 4.0% |
| Hindu | 0.5% | 0.8% | 13.6% |
| Jain | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.1% |
| Jewish | 0.5% | 0.4% | 0.2% |
| Muslim | 1.7% | 1.5% | 20.8% |
| Shintoist | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Sikh | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.3% |
| Spiritist | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.2% |
| Taoist | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.1% |
| Zoroastrian | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Other Religions | 0.4% | 0.3% | 1.6% |
| Neo-religions | 0.4% | 0.3% | -- |
| Non-religious | 15.2% | 15.9% | 11.7% |
| Atheist | 1.7% | 1.6% | 2.3% |
Religious Demography
The country has an area of 2.9 million square miles and a population of 21 million. According to the 2006 census, 64 percent of citizens consider themselves to be Christian, including 26 percent Roman Catholic, 19 percent Anglican, and 19 percent other Christian. Buddhists constitute 2.1 percent of the population, Muslims 1.7 percent, Hindus 0.7 percent, Jews 0.4 percent, and all others professing a religion 0.5 percent. At the time of European settlement, aboriginal inhabitants followed religions that were animistic, involving belief in spirits behind the forces of nature and the influence of ancestral spirit beings. According to the 2006 census, 5,206 persons, or less than 0.03 percent of respondents, reported practicing aboriginal traditional religions, down from 5,244 in 2001. The 2006 census reported that almost 64 percent of Aborigines practice some form of Christianity, and 20 percent listed no religion. During the first census, in 1911, 96 percent of citizens identified themselves as Christian. In recent decades traditional Christian denominations have seen their total number and proportion of affiliates stagnate or decrease significantly, although from 2001 to 2006, the total number of Pentecostal and charismatic Christians increased by 12.9 percent. Over the past decade, increased immigration from Southeast Asia and the Middle East considerably expanded the numbers of citizens who identify themselves as Buddhists and Muslims, and increased the ethnic diversity of existing Christian denominations. Between 2001 and 2006, the number of Buddhists increased 17 percent to 418,000 persons, Muslims 21 percent to 340,393, Jews 6 percent to 89,000, and Hindus increased 55 percent to 148,131. In 2006 approximately 18.7 percent of citizens considered themselves to have no religion, up from 17 percent in 2001, and 11.2 percent made no statement regarding religious affiliation. According to a 2002 survey, 23 percent of adults had participated in church or religious activities during the previous three months. Missionaries operate freely in the country.2
Sources
Note: All country profiles, maps, and flags are taken from The World Factbook, 2005.
1. The World Christian Database (WCD) is based on the 2600-page award-winning World Christian Encyclopedia and World Christian Trends, first published in 1982 and revised in 2001. This extensive work on World religion is now completely updated and integrated into the WCD online database. Designed for both the casual user and research scholar, information is readily available on religious activities, growth rates, religious literature, worker activity, and demographic statistics. Additional secular data is incorporated on population, health, education, and communications. A dataset with these and the other international measures highlighted on the country pages can be downloaded from this website. Used with permission.
2. The U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom report is submitted to Congress annually by the Department of State in compliance with Section 102(b) of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998. This report supplements the most recent Human Rights Reports by providing additional detailed information with respect to matters involving international religious freedom. It includes individual country chapters on the status of religious freedom worldwide. A dataset with these and the other international measures highlighted on the country pages can be downloaded from this website. These State Department reports are open source.
