Updates

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A new feature of the World Christian Database allows analysis of data by groups of countries.

The group could be an intergovernmental organization such as NATO, or a geographic region such as the Middle East, or a group of countries with common history such as "Post World War 2 independence states".

For a listing of all the pre-defined groups see the query "All country groups and organizations".

Analysis can answer such questions as:

• What is the largest religion in Commonwealth of Nations countries?
• What intergovernmental organization has the lowest life expectancy across all its member countries?
• Which "Organisation of Islamic Cooperation" member states are predominantly Christian?
• Are there more Orthodox Christians in "OPEC" or the "Pacific Community"? (both with populations totalling about 400 million)

See the new Country membership home page for all the sample queries. Users can also add "Country memberships" fields to existing queries to allow group selection in any query based on the country table.

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New fields in the religion tables report the 24-hour population change by religion in each country and region and globally.

For example, every day on average over the last 10 years the global Christian population increased by 76,000 people and the Muslim population increased by 72,000 people. The 24-hour change at the end of the period, in 2010, is even higher: 86,000 Christians and 81,000 Muslims.

Global results are shown in the Global 24-hour change query, which is found on the "Religious change over time" home page along with more sample queries.

The two fields are called "Daily change 2000-2010" and "Daily change in 2010" can also be added by users to any queries that show religion-over-time. The average figure is better for looking back at the 2000-2010 period, while the 2010 figure is more useful for discussions in the present.

(For simplicity, only the average daily change is included in the sample queries. The "Daily change 2000-2010" can be thought of as the average change over the full 10 years, and is simply the total increase per year divided by 365.25. "Daily change in 2010" can be thought of as a more "Current" daily change, and is calculated by applying the rate of increase in the 2000-2010 period to the population in 2010.)

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