Religious Demography
The country has an area of approximately 47,000 square miles (120,000 km2) and a population estimated at 22.7 million. The number of religious believers was unknown but was estimated by the government to be 10,000 Protestants, 10,000 Buddhists, and 4,000 Catholics. Estimates by South Korean and international church-related groups were considerably higher. In addition, the Chondogyo Young Friends Party, a government-approved group based on a traditional religious movement, had approximately 40,000 practitioners, according to the Government.
According to Religious Intelligence UK the situation of religion in North Korea is the following:
- Irreligion: 15,460,000 (64.3% of population, the vast majority of which are adherents of the Juche philosophy)
- Korean Shamanism: 3,846,000 adherents (16% of population)
- Cheondoism: 3,245,000 adherents (13.5% of population)
- Buddhism: 1,082,000 adherents (4.5% of population)
- Christianity: 406,000 adherents (1.7% of population)
Read more about this topic: Religion In North Korea
Famous quotes containing the word religious:
“... the generation of the 20’s was truly secular in that it still knew its theology and its varieties of religious experience. We are post-secular, inventing new faiths, without any sense of organizing truths. The truths we accept are so multiple that honesty becomes little more than a strategy by which you manage your tendencies toward duplicity.”
—Ann Douglas (b. 1942)