Change in Countries With Largest Buddhist Populations
Most of the countries with the largest numbers of Buddhists as of 2010 are expected to see their overall populations decline as a share of the world’s population. Collectively, these countries held 44% of the world’s population in 2010. By 2050, their share of the global population is expected to decline to 37%. China is expected to go from having nearly 20% of the world’s population in 2010 to 14% in 2050.
The proportion of China’s population that is Buddhist is expected to remain around 18% between 2010 and 2050. But in many other countries with large Buddhist populations, the Buddhist share of the population is expected to decline in the decades ahead, because Buddhists tend to be older and have fewer children than non-Buddhists.46 In Japan, for example, the Buddhist share of the population is forecast to drop by more than 10 percentage points, from 36% in 2010 to 25% in 2050.
By a wide margin, China, with a Buddhist population of 244 million, had the most Buddhists living within its borders in 2010. In fact, about half of the world’s Buddhists in 2010 lived in China, though only about one-in-five Chinese people (18%) were Buddhist.
The 10 countries with the most Buddhists in 2010 – home to a combined 94% of the world’s Buddhists – were all in Asia, including Thailand (64 million), Japan (46 million), Burma (38 million) and Sri Lanka (14 million).
As was the case in 2010, the overwhelming majority of Buddhists in 2050 will be found in the 10 countries with the largest Buddhist populations (93%). China and Thailand are expected to remain atop the list. Burma (Myanmar) is projected to have the third-largest Buddhist population in 2050 (45 million), surpassing Japan (27 million). Due in part to projected immigration, the United States is expected to go from having the 13th-largest Buddhist population in 2010 to the 10th-largest in 2050, when it is projected to be home to 5.5 million Buddhists.
