2026-08-05 · Buddhists worldwide

Buddhists are a regional majority in only a few countries

Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia — most of the world is outside the tradition.

Buddhism counts roughly 500 million adherents worldwide, yet it is a regional majority in only a few countries — Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia among them. The grid shows why: 88% of the world's Buddhists live in East and Southeast Asia, leaving most of the globe outside the tradition.

1 cell = 500 thousand Buddhists worldwide (0.1% of global Buddhists) · 1,000 cells

Context

The grid splits the world's roughly 500 million Buddhists by region of residence, using Pew Research Center's religious composition estimates. East and Southeast Asia account for 88%; the rest of Asia and the Pacific for 6.2%; Africa for 3.4%; and the Americas for 2.4%.

Pew's country-level religious composition series covers 2010–2020, and a March 2026 data essay examined Buddhism's recent decline in East Asia — evidence that even the tradition's demographic heartland is not static.

Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia are the exceptions the title points to: places where Buddhists are a regional majority. Across Africa and the Americas especially, Buddhist communities remain small minorities.

Pew religious composition estimates.