2007/08/01 by Barney Warf, Peter Vincent · 28 citations
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Religion and Society Interactions #Religion, Society, and Development #Religious Tourism and Spaces #Diversity (politics) #Globe #Religiosity #Religious diversity #Faith #Government (linguistics) #China #Index (typography) #Diversity index #Sociology #Geography #Scale (ratio) #Social science #Political science #Anthropology #Law #Ecology #Psychology #Cartography
paper · doi:10.1080/14649360701529857
published in Social & Cultural Geography 8(4), 597-613 (Taylor & Francis)
openalex publication_date 2007/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
This paper examines religious diversity at the global scale for 237 countries using data from the World Christian Database. It explores the social forces driving religious diversity, including national histories, demographic trends, and government policies, as well as the relations between religious diversity and religiosity. It summarizes several conceptual approaches to this topic. Empirically, four measures of diversity are employed: the number of religions in each country; proportion of adherents in the largest faith; the Shannon index; and the Simpson index. These are mapped using both conventional choropleths and Dorling cartograms. The diversity measures show that China, India, Russia, Japan, and Indonesia are among the world's most religiously diverse states, and contrary to received wisdom, are more diverse than the USA, which is often regarded as the most diverse in the world.