Muslims in the world: population and demographics
How many Muslims are there, where do they live, and how is that changing? A clear, sourced overview of the Muslim world's population today and in the decades ahead.
How many Muslims are there in the world? Where do they live, and how is that picture changing? This data hub gathers clear, carefully sourced answers to those questions. Islam is a truly global religion, no longer confined to the countries we think of as Arab or Asian, and the numbers behind it help explain why mosques are found in almost every corner of the planet.
What the figures show
According to the Pew Research Center, there were roughly 1.6 billion Muslims in 2010, and the total has continued to climb since. Islam is the world's second-largest religion after Christianity, and Muslims make up close to a quarter of humanity. Most live in the Asia-Pacific region rather than the Middle East, and the largest single national community is not in the Arab world at all but in Indonesia. These patterns, and the many surprises within them, are the subject of the articles below.
Explore the data
- Muslim population worldwide maps the Muslim population today, its size, how it is distributed by region, which countries have the largest communities, and how big a share of the world it represents.
- future of the Muslim population looks ahead. Drawing on Pew's projections, it explains why the Muslim population is growing, the role of age structure and fertility, and what the outlook is toward mid-century.
- Muslims in Europe zooms in on Europe, the rough share of the population, the main countries such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom, and the striking diversity of origins within European Islam.
A note on the numbers
Demographic figures are estimates, not exact counts. Censuses often do not ask about religion, definitions differ, and projections depend on assumptions about fertility and migration. Throughout these pages we prefer defensible ranges and round figures, and we attribute the main sources, chiefly the Pew Research Center, so you can judge them for yourself.
Numbers describe a community; they never capture it fully. Behind every statistic are real people at prayer. When the figures spark your curiosity, use MosqueFinder to find mosques in your own city and see that community up close.
Muslim population by country
| Country | Muslims worldwide | Muslim share | Mosques indexed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indonesia | 238,000,000 | 87% | 0 |
| Pakistan | 213,000,000 | 96.5% | 6,338 |
| India | 196,000,000 | 14.2% | 6,691 |
| Bangladesh | 149,000,000 | 90.4% | 10,959 |
| Nigeria | 103,000,000 | 50% | 0 |
| Egypt | 92,000,000 | 90.3% | 0 |
| Iran | 83,000,000 | 99.4% | 11,012 |
| Turkey | 82,000,000 | 98% | 17,191 |
| Algeria | 43,000,000 | 99% | 951 |
| Sudan | 40,000,000 | 91% | 1,174 |
| Iraq | 38,000,000 | 96% | 3,227 |
| Afghanistan | 38,000,000 | 99.7% | 551 |
| Morocco | 36,000,000 | 99% | 1,976 |
| Saudi Arabia | 32,000,000 | 93% | 3,296 |
| Malaysia | 20,000,000 | 61.3% | 4,295 |
| Mali | 19,000,000 | 94% | 321 |
| Tunisia | 11,700,000 | 99% | 1,551 |
| United Arab Emirates | 7,500,000 | 76% | 616 |
| France | 5,800,000 | 8.6% | 1,036 |
| Germany | 5,400,000 | 6.5% | 1,567 |
| United Kingdom | 4,100,000 | 6.3% | 1,662 |
| United States | 3,600,000 | 1.1% | 1,940 |
| Italy | 2,900,000 | 4.9% | 103 |
| Spain | 1,900,000 | 4.1% | 183 |
| Kosovo | 1,710,000 | 95% | 305 |
| Albania | 1,660,000 | 58% | 193 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | 1,560,000 | 50% | 736 |
| Canada | 1,400,000 | 3.7% | 322 |
| Singapore | 890,000 | 15.6% | 70 |
| Netherlands | 870,000 | 5% | 350 |
| Belgium | 870,000 | 7.6% | 222 |
| Sweden | 840,000 | 8.1% | 51 |
| Bulgaria | 760,000 | 11% | 140 |
| Austria | 720,000 | 8% | 146 |
| Australia | 660,000 | 2.6% | 106 |
| Greece | 610,000 | 5.7% | 34 |
| North Macedonia | 580,000 | 28% | 97 |
| Switzerland | 450,000 | 5.2% | 69 |
| Argentina | 450,000 | 1% | 6 |
| Ukraine | 400,000 | 0.9% | 102 |
Sources: Pew Research Center, national censuses and the MosqueFinder directory. Figures are the most recent available estimates.