Religion in America - Religious Affiliation

The chart shows the religious affiliation of the adult population¹ in the United States for two years: 1990 and 2001. Adherents to Christianity made up a majority in both years. In 1990, the number of Christians exceeded those who claimed no religious affiliation. By 2001 this had changed. Those without an affiliation made up a higher percentage of the adult population (2.4% higher) than did the total non-Christian religious population. The latter stood at 10.8%.

The following table breaks down the graphed data into the 15 religions (in the U.S., of course) with the highest adult populations in 2001. Ratios are shown to the adult population as reported in the year 2000 census of population. Individually, except for Judaism, each non-Christian religion shown made up less than 1% of the U.S. adult population in 2001. But these religions have been the most dynamic in terms of growth from 1990 to 2001. A later panel will discuss these growth rates.

Top 15 Religions in the United States by Adult Population, 2001

	% of adult pop.	Est. adult pop.
Christian	76.00	159,030,000
Nonreligious/secular	13.20	27,539,000
Jewish2	1.40	2,831,000
Islamic	0.50	1,104,000
Buddhist	0.50	1,082,000
Agnostic	0.50	991,000
Atheist	0.40	902,000
Hindu	0.40	766,000
Unitarian Universalist	0.30	629,000
Wiccan/Pagan/Druid	0.10	307,000
Spiritualist	0.06	116,000
Native American Religion	0.05	103,000
Baha'i	0.04	84,000
New Age beliefs	0.03	68,000
Sikh	0.03	57,000

Christianity has the highest percentage of adherents in both the United States and in the world. But the United States is slightly more secular or unbelieving than the world. Combining the nonreligious, secular, atheistic, and agnostic values, 14.1% of the U.S. population falls into these categories, 14.0% of the world's adult population. The following table shows the top 15 religions of the world, by percentage of world population³ and by number of adherents.

Top 15 Religions in the World, by Number of Adherents, 2001

	% of world pop.	Est. adherents
Christian	33.00	2,000,000,000
Islamic	22.00	1,300,000,000
Hindu	15.00	900,000,000
Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist beliefs	14.00	850,000,000
Buddhist	6.00	360,000,000
Chinese traditional religion	4.00	225,000,000
Primal-indigenous beliefs	3.00	190,000,000
Sikh	0.38	23,000,000
Yoruba Religion	0.33	20,000,000
Juche	0.32	19,000,000
Spiritist	0.23	14,000,000
Jewish2	0.23	14,000,000
Baha'i	0.10	6,000,000
Jainist	0.07	4,000,000
Shinto	0.05	3,000,000

In the next panel, we look at the 10 largest denominational families in the United States.

Sources: "Top 20 Religions in the United States." Online. Available: http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html. February 28, 2002. 1990 and 2000 Population data: U.S. Bureau of the Census. World Religion data: "Major Religions of the World Ranked by Number of Adherents." Online. Available: http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html. November 28, 2001.