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Religious Populations
Christianity is main religion in Britain
Christianity is the main religion in Great Britain. There were 41 million Christians in 2001, making up almost three quarters of the population (72 per cent). This group included the Church of England, Church of Scotland, Church in Wales, Catholic, Protestant and all other Christian denominations.
People with no religion formed the second largest group, comprising 15 per cent of the population.
About one in 20 (5 per cent) of the population belonged to a non-Christian religious denomination.
Muslims were the largest religious group after Christians. There were 1.6 million Muslims living in Britain in 2001. This group comprised 3 per cent of the total population and over half (52 per cent) of the non-Christian religious population.
Hindus were the second largest non-Christian religious group. There were over half a million Hindus (558,000), comprising 1 per cent of the total population and 18 per cent of the non-Christian religious population.
There were just over a third of a million Sikhs (336,000), making up 0.6 per cent of the total population and 11 per cent of the non-Christian religious population.
There were just over a quarter of a million Jewish people (267,000), constituting 0.5 per cent of the total population and 9 per cent of the non-Christian religious group.
Buddhists numbered 149,000 people in 2001, comprising 0.3 per cent of the population of Great Britain.
The religion question was the only voluntary question in the 2001 Census and 8 per cent of people chose not to state their religion.
The distribution of non-Christian religions, April 2001, GB
Other religions in England and Wales
Rather than select one of the specified religions offered on the 2001 Census form, many people chose to write in their own religion. Some of these religions were reassigned to one of the main religions offered, predominantly within the Christian group.
In England and Wales, 151,000 people belonged to religious groups which did not fall into any of the main religions. The largest of these were Spiritualists (32,000) and Pagans (31,000), followed by Jain (15,000), Wicca (7,000), Rastafarian (5,000), Bahà'ì (5,000) and Zoroastrian (4,000).
Sources:
Census, April 2001, Office for National Statistics
Census, April 2001, General Register Office for Scotland
Notes:
The chart of non-Christian religions excludes Christians, people who had no religion and those who did not state their religion.
No religion includes people who ticked 'None' at the religion question plus those who wrote in Jedi Knight, Agnostic, Atheist and Heathen and those who ticked 'Other' but did not write in any religion.
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