Buddhism by country

• 1. Introduction

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  Buddhism by country is a subject that begins with a striking figure: roughly 324 million people practice Buddhism worldwide, making up about 4.1 percent of the global population. That share may sound modest, but the geography behind it is anything but uniform. A handful of countries account for the overwhelming majority of those believers. Just ten nations together claim more than 91 percent of all Buddhists on earth. The questions that follow from this are worth sitting with: Which countries carry Buddhism as their official state religion? Where do the largest branches of the faith diverge? And what does the data say about whether Buddhism is growing or shrinking as the world changes?

• 2. Four Nations, One State Religion

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  Cambodia, Myanmar, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka share a distinction held by no other group of four countries for Buddhism: each recognizes the faith as its official state religion. The weight of that status shows up in the population figures. Cambodia stood at 96.9 percent Buddhist as of the 2010 Pew Research Center count, with roughly 13,690,000 practitioners in a country of around 14 million. Myanmar came in close behind at 89.9 percent, accounting for approximately 38,410,000 people. Sri Lanka registered 69.3 percent, representing about 14,450,000 Buddhists. Bhutan, the smallest of the four by population, recorded 74.7 percent of its roughly 730,000 residents as Buddhist. These four countries do not simply have majority Buddhist populations; they have written that majority into their constitutional identity. Thailand, while not in this group, presents a related data point: as of the 2020 Pew figures, 94.4 percent of Thais identified as Buddhist, giving it more total Buddhists than any other single nation at approximately 67,620,000.

• 3. Mahayana and Theravada

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  Around 53 percent of the world's Buddhists follow Mahayana, making it the largest branch of the faith. Its center of gravity lies in East Asia. Theravada, the second-largest tradition, draws roughly 36 percent of practitioners and is concentrated in Mainland Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka. The country-level numbers reflect this split clearly. China, with a Buddhist population estimated at around 244,130,000 in 2010, is the largest single home of Mahayana practice, even though Buddhists represent only about 18.2 percent of that enormous population. Japan recorded 36.2 percent Buddhist, corresponding to roughly 45,820,000 people. South Korea stood at 22.9 percent, or about 11,050,000. On the Theravada side, countries like Laos registered 66.1 percent Buddhist, and Thailand's figures place it firmly in that tradition as well. Smaller schools such as Navayana exist primarily in India, though the source notes they are followed only scantily there. India itself, despite being Buddhism's place of origin, recorded just 0.8 percent Buddhist as of 2010, representing about 9,250,000 people in a population exceeding 1.2 billion.

• 4. Asia-Pacific Dominance

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  The Asia-Pacific region accounted for an estimated 481,290,000 Buddhists in 2010, out of a regional population of roughly 4,054,990,000. That gives the region an 11.9 percent Buddhist share, which is the only region with a figure above single low digits. Every other part of the world trails sharply. North America held approximately 3,860,000 Buddhists from a population of about 344,530,000, roughly 1.1 percent. Europe recorded around 1,330,000 from a population near 742,550,000, putting the share at 0.2 percent. The Middle East and North Africa together counted only about 500,000 Buddhists, a 0.1 percent share. Latin America and the Caribbean registered fewer than 410,000, falling below even that threshold. The United States, the largest Western nation by Buddhist numbers, recorded approximately 3,570,000 practitioners out of a population of about 310,380,000. Australia stood at 2.7 percent Buddhist, with around 600,000 adherents. Singapore, a city-state of about 5 million, registered 33.9 percent Buddhist, or roughly 1,730,000 people, placing it among the highest-share countries outside the Theravada and East Asian heartlands.

• 5. The Pew Decline Finding

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  Pew Research Center made a notable observation in its 2010-to-2020 global religious landscape report: Buddhism was the only religion to have declined during that period. This sets it apart from every other major faith tracked in that study. The 2020 Pew figures show a world Buddhist total of approximately 324,190,000, with the ten largest Buddhist-majority countries together accounting for about 295,530,000. The remaining share of roughly 28,660,000 Buddhists is spread across the rest of the world, representing about 0.6 percent of those countries' populations. Vietnam, with about 16.4 percent of its population identifying as Buddhist, recorded approximately 14,380,000 practitioners, placing it among the significant Buddhist nations that fall outside the top ten concentration zone. Mongolia, at 55.1 percent Buddhist, counted around 1,520,000 Buddhists from a relatively small population. Taiwan recorded 21.3 percent and about 4,950,000 practitioners. How this trajectory develops across the coming decades remains one of the open questions that the geographic distribution of Buddhism leaves unanswered.