Buddhism By Country

Buddhism By Country

Estimating the number of Buddhists in the world, or in many countries, is difficult due to definitional issues as well as practical problems of enumeration. To begin with, the religious beliefs, practices, and identities of East Asians (who comprise the majority of the world's Buddhists by any measure) often blend Buddhism with other traditions including Confucianism, the Chinese folk religion, Daoism, Shinto, and Korean shamanism. The articles Religion in China, Religion in Vietnam, Religion in Japan, Religion in Korea, Vinegar tasters, Sinosphere, Neo-Confucianism, East Asian Buddhism, and Buddhism and Eastern religions discuss this phenomenon in greater detail.

Most followers of Buddhism do not belong to structured congregations, or observe a definite ritual of adherence such as taking Refuge, making it difficult to accurately estimate the number of practitioners. An additional challenge is the hostility of several national governments (often Communist ones such as China or North Korea) to religion generally or to Buddhism specifically. Government policies in these countries may encourage the under-reporting or non-reporting of religious adherence, resulting in official totals that may drastically underestimate the number of religious practitioners in these countries.

Estimate of the worldwide Buddhist population range from 350 million to over one billion, but cluster nearer to the first figure. Adherents.com (as of 2012) suggests a figure of 397 million. By major branches, the numbers are as follows:

(1) Mahayana Buddhism, including

(1a) East Asian Buddhism, with no fewer than 185 million adherents, and possibly several times that many (again, depending on definitional issues). This is the predominant form of Buddhism practiced in China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and Vietnam.

(1b) Tibetan Buddhism, with approximately 20 million adherents. This form of Buddhism predominates in the greater Tibetan and Mongolian regions, as well as in the Himalayas. Besides the independent countries of Mongolia and Bhutan, and various territories within what is now western China, Tibetan Buddhism is traditional to certain regions of Russia (e.g. Kalmykia, Buryatia), India (e.g. Ladakh, Sikkim), and Nepal (e.g. Khumbu). Tibetan Buddhism is often conflated with Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism, but this is imprecise, as Shingon and other forms of East Asian Buddhism also practice tantra.

(2) Theravada Buddhism, with no fewer than 125 million adherents. This is the predominant form of Buddhism practiced in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Sri Lanka, and Burma.

At least 7 countries (Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Bhutan, and Mongolia) have unambiguous Buddhist majorities. Depending on how one calculates Chinese and other East Asian adherents, this figure might expand to include several more countries. In addition, Buddhism is the state religion of Cambodia and Bhutan, and receives prominent mention in the constitutions of Thailand and Sri Lanka.

In northern India and Nepal, the land where Buddhism was born, the religion severely declined during the first millennium. Whether this decline was due to the Islamic conquest of north India, or to other factors, remains controversial. See the article Decline of Buddhism in India.