- Summary
- Adherents
- Religious Freedom
- Socio-economic
- Public Opinion
Religious Adherents1 |
Tanzania | Eastern Africa | World |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baha'i | 0.5% | 0.4% | 0.1% |
| Buddhist | 0.1% | 0.0% | 5.8% |
| Chinese Universalist | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.8% |
| Christian | 53.0% | 62.0% | 33.3% |
| Confucianist | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.1% |
| Ethnoreligionist | 14.8% | 15.6% | 4.0% |
| Hindu | 0.9% | 0.5% | 13.6% |
| Jain | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.1% |
| Jewish | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.2% |
| Muslim | 30.4% | 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 | 0.2% | 0.3% | 11.7% |
| Atheist | 0.1% | 0.0% | 2.3% |
Religious Demography
The country has an area of 364,900 square miles and a population of 37 million, of which 36 million live on the mainland and 1 million on the Zanzibar archipelago. Current statistics on religious demography are unavailable because religious surveys were eliminated from government census reports after 1967. Religious leaders and sociologists estimate that the Christian and Muslim communities are equal, each accounting for 30 to 40 percent of the population, with the remainder consisting of practitioners of other faiths and indigenous religions, and atheists . Ninety-nine percent of the population on the Zanzibar archipelago is Muslim. On the mainland, Muslim communities are concentrated in coastal areas, with some large Muslim minorities also in inland urban areas. Between 80 and 90 percent of the country's Muslim population is Sunni; the remainder consists of several Shi'a subgroups, mostly of Asian descent. The Christian population is composed of Roman Catholics, Protestants, Pentecostals, Seventh-day Adventists, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and members of Jehovah's Witnesses. Foreign missionaries operate in the country. 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.
