Updates

Four important but unrelated changes are included in this quarter’s update:

The former UN region of South-Central Asia is split, allowing estimates for Central Asia to now be shown separately from those of South Asia.

The year 2030 is added as an extra data point, so that the religion over time series now includes the years 1900, 1950, 1970, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020, 2025, 2030 and 2050.

The “Independent” Christian major tradition now includes the former “Marginal Christian” category which is being retired. (See the January 2014 edition of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research).

The category “Great Commission Christians” which was also labeled “evangelicals” (with a lower case ‘e’) is also being retired, partly to avoid confusion with the ongoing category ‘Evangelicals’ (with a capital ‘E’). A forthcoming article will explain the rationale and implications.

The populations of every religion in every country are reconciled with each biennial revision of the population data produced by the UN: (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2013). World Population Prospects: The 2012 Revision).

This WCD update includes the latest re-reconciliation of statistics on all Christian denominations and world religions including Peoples and Provinces.

New projections of religious adherents for 2025 and 2050 proceed from this.

This revision also sees the former Netherlands Antilles split into three new countries: "Curacao", "Sint Maarten" (the Dutch part of the island of St. Martin) and the "Caribbean Netherlands" (comprising the BES Islands: Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba).