Singapore has emerged as the world’s most religiously diverse nation in a comprehensive study covering 201 countries, with its population distributed relatively evenly across seven major faith groups.
According to timesofindia.indiatimes.com, the report also highlights broader global patterns, showing that Christians remain the largest religious community at 2.3 billion people worldwide, while Muslims are the fastest-growing group and Hindus account for nearly 15% of the global population.
Muslims are the fastest-growing major religion, expanding by 347 million over the past decade. Hindus grew by 126 million to reach 1.2 billion, holding steady at 14.9% of the global population. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated now account for 24.2% worldwide, the third-largest category, and Buddhists are the only major faith to decline in absolute numbers.At the opposite end of the diversity scale, Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia rank among the least religiously diverse, while the Asia-Pacific region stands out as the most varied overall.
These findings are drawn from a Pew Research Center report released in February 2026 as part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, the John Templeton Foundation and Templeton Religion Trust.
The study ranks countries using a Religious Diversity Index (RDI) based on how evenly populations are distributed across seven groups: Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, adherents of all other religions, and people with no religious affiliation.
The rankings rely on demographic estimates previously published in Pew’s 2025 report, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020, which synthesised more than 2,700 censuses and surveys. Each of the 201 countries and territories included had at least 100,000 residents in 2010 or 2020, collectively accounting for 99.98% of the global population in 2020.
How the Religious Diversity Index works
Pew’s Religious Diversity Index (RDI) assigns countries a score between 0 and 10. A score of 0 represents complete homogeneity, a population composed entirely of one religious group. A score of 10 would represent a perfectly even split among seven categories: Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, adherents of other religions, and people with no religious affiliation, each group making up roughly 14% of the population.
No country achieved a perfect 10.The “other religions” category encompasses faiths such as Baha’is, Daoists, Jains, Shintoists, Sikhs, Wiccans and Zoroastrians, as well as numerous smaller groups, including those often described as folk or traditional religions.
Of the 201 countries and territories studied, eight fall into the “very high” diversity range (scores between 7.0 and 10.0). At the other end of the scale, 41 countries are classified as “very low” diversity, with scores below 1.0. The largest number, 89 countries, sit in the middle, categorised as moderately diverse.
Singapore and the world’s most diverse societies
With a score of 9.3, Singapore comes closer than any other country to an even distribution across the seven categories. Buddhists form 31% of Singapore’s population, making them the largest group. But they are followed closely by religiously unaffiliated residents at 20%, Christians at 19%, Muslims at 16%, Hindus at 5%, and adherents of other religions at 9%. No single group holds a majority. Suriname ranks second and is the only Latin American country in the top 10. Its population is 53% Christian, 22% Hindu, 13% Muslim and 8% religiously unaffiliated, a demographic pattern shaped in part by descendants of 19th-century indentured labourers from British India.
Most other countries in the top 10 are located either in the Asia-Pacific region, Taiwan, South Korea and Australia, or in sub-Saharan Africa, Mauritius, Guinea-Bissau, Togo and Benin. France is the only European country in the top 10. Its population is 46% Christian, 43% religiously unaffiliated and 9% Muslim, giving it an RDI score of 6.9. For comparison, South Korea scores 7.3 and the United States 5.8.
The least diverse countries
No country scores a perfect zero. But Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia come closest. In each, Muslims account for 99.8% or more of the population. Overall, Muslims make up at least 99% of the population in eight of the ten least religiously diverse countries and territories. The remaining two, Timor-Leste and Moldova, are almost entirely Christian.
Regionally, the Middle East and North Africa has the lowest diversity score at 1.3. The region’s population is 94% Muslim and includes five of the world’s ten least diverse places: Yemen, Morocco, Western Sahara, Iraq and Tunisia.
What changed globally between 2010 and 2020
The study also revisits how the world’s religious composition shifted over the decade. Christians remain the largest religious group globally.
Their numbers rose by 122 million to reach 2.3 billion. But as a share of the global population, Christians declined by 1.8 percentage points, falling to 28.8%. Muslims were the fastest-growing group. Their population increased by 347 million, more than all other religions combined, and their global share rose by 1.8 percentage points to 25.6%. People with no religious affiliation, often called “nones,” grew by 270 million to 1.9 billion, increasing their share to 24.2% of the global population.
This growth occurred despite the group being older on average and having lower fertility rates, partly because of religious “switching,”particularly Christians disaffiliating. Hindus increased by 126 million to 1.2 billion and held steady at 14.9% of the global population.
