The 10 countries with the highest Buddhist populations are all based on the continent of Asia. The reason behind this is that since Buddhists follow the teachings of Gautama Buddha, who lived in Asia during his time, the religion is also famous in Asia. While there are currently nearly 500 million Buddhists in the world, making it one of the world’s largest religions, only 10 countries host nearly 95% of the world’s Buddhist population.
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Buddhism is a nontheistic religion which is different from being an atheist. A nontheistic religion means lack of belief in God but following a set of beliefs, traditions and practices. On the other hand, the 11 countries with the highest atheist population not only fail to believe in a God but avoid any traditions, beliefs and practices as well.
We have used data and research conducted by the Pew Research Center, which is an American think tank in order to rank the countries with the highest Buddhist population. We have used the most recent data available to us, since censuses aren’t conducted yearly. With this in mind, here are the 10 countries with the highest Buddhist populations:
10. Malaysia
Total Buddhist population in the country: 5,010,000
After Islam, Buddhism is the biggest religion in the country with nearly a fifth of the country practicing Buddhism. The religion is generally practiced by Malaysian Chinese and Malaysian Sri Lankans in the country.
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