- Summary
- Adherents
- Religious Freedom
- Socio-economic
- Public Opinion
Religious Adherents1 |
Somalia | Eastern Africa | World |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baha'i | 0.0% | 0.4% | 0.1% |
| Buddhist | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.8% |
| Chinese Universalist | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.8% |
| Christian | 1.3% | 62.0% | 33.3% |
| Confucianist | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.1% |
| Ethnoreligionist | 0.1% | 15.6% | 4.0% |
| Hindu | 0.0% | 0.5% | 13.6% |
| Jain | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.1% |
| Jewish | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.2% |
| Muslim | 98.5% | 21.1% | 20.8% |
| Shintoist | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Sikh | 0.0% | 0.0% | 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 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.6% |
| Neo-religions | 0.0% | 0.0% | -- |
| Non-religious | 0.0% | 0.3% | 11.7% |
| Atheist | 0.0% | 0.0% | 2.3% |
Religious Demography
The country has an area of 246,200 square miles and a population of approximately 8.3 million; however, population figures are difficult to estimate due to the instability of the country. Citizens are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims of a Sufi tradition. There also is a small, extremely low-profile Christian community, in addition of small numbers of followers of other religions. The number of adherents to strains of conservative Islam and the number of Islamic schools supported by religiously conservative sources continue to grow.2
Sources
Note: All country histories and flags were obtained from The World Factbook, 2008.
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.
