Djibouti

International > Regions > Eastern Africa > Djibouti


Religious Adherents1

Djibouti Eastern Africa World
Baha'i 0.1% 0.4% 0.1%
Buddhist 0.0% 0.0% 5.8%
Chinese Universalist 0.0% 0.0% 5.8%
Christian 1.7% 62.0% 33.3%
Confucianist 0.0% 0.0% 0.1%
Ethnoreligionist 0.0% 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 96.9% 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 1.2% 0.3% 11.7%
Atheist 0.0% 0.0% 2.3%

Religious Demography

The country has an area of 8,450 square miles and a population of 700,000. More than 99 percent of the population is Sunni Muslim. There are a small number of Roman Catholics, Protestants, Copts, and Baha'is, accounting for less than 1 percent of the population. There are no known practitioners of traditional indigenous religions. Citizens officially are considered Muslims if they do not specifically identify with a faith; there are no figures available on the number of atheists in the country. Foreign-born Djiboutians are generally members of Roman Catholic, Protestant, Greek Orthodox, or Ethiopian Orthodox denominations. A small number of foreign missionary groups 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.