2026-06-26 · Buddhists worldwide
Buddhists are a regional majority in only a few countries
Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia — most of the world is outside the tradition.
Buddhism is the majority religion in only a handful of countries — Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia among them — and its roughly 500 million adherents are tightly clustered: Pew Research Center's estimates place 88% of them in East and Southeast Asia. Most of the world, in other words, lives outside the tradition.
1 cell = 500 thousand Buddhists worldwide (0.1% of global Buddhists) · 1,000 cells
Context
Pew Research Center's religious composition estimates put 88% of the world's roughly 500 million Buddhists in East and Southeast Asia, with another 6.2% in the rest of Asia and the Pacific. The remainder is spread thinly: 3.4% live in Africa and 2.4% in the Americas.
National majorities are scarcer still. Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia are the touchstone cases, and outside a short list of countries — most of them in Asia — Buddhists are a religious minority.
Pew's March 2026 data essay "Buddhism's Recent Decline in East Asia" examines the region where nearly nine-in-ten Buddhists live, a reminder that even the tradition's demographic heartland is not static.
Pew religious composition estimates.
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