Demographic atlas

A diverse range of participants attended the youth conference in Durham, North Carolina in 2013.

The Bahá’í Faith is entirely contained in a single, organized, hierarchical community, but the Bahá’í population is spread out into almost every country and ethnicity in the world, being recognized as the second-most geographically widespread religion after Christianity. The demography of the Bahá’í community is thus quite diverse and, with the continued growth of the young religion, continually changing.

Among the objects comprising Bahá’í demography are the population of the community at various scales (regional, national, and global); the change in that population; ethnic, cultural and linguistic groups and indigenous peoples represented in the Bahá’í community; the proportion of men to women; and more.

The Bahá’í world

The planet Earth.

The Bahá’í International Community reports the following statistics about the worldwide Bahá’í community:

• Between 5 and 8 million Bahá’ís residing in over 100,000 localities;
• Around 2,100 indigenous tribes, races, and ethnic groups represented;
• Bahá’í writings and literature translated into 800 languages.

Population

Estimated growth of the Bahá’í Faith, based on Handbuch Bahai (Hutter, 2004).

The most recent estimates of the size of the worldwide Bahá’í community give a figure of eight million adherents. Manfred Hutter's Handbuch Bahai: Geschichte - Theologie - Gesellschaftsbezug (2004) estimated around 7.5 million Bahá’ís in the world as of its publication.

The Bahá’ís, a magazine first published in 1992 by the Bahá’í International Community, reported that there were "more than five million" Bahá’ís worldwide at that time.

Hutter (2004) gives estimates of 4.5 million Bahá’ís in 1988 and just over 1 million in 1968. Robert Stockman makes similar estimates in The Baha'i Faith: A Guide For The Perplexed (2012), citing 4.3 million Baha'is in 1986, 3.2 million in 1979, and 1 million in 1968.

Historical statistics

The following table was provided by the Bahá’í World Centre Department of Statistics as an overview of the growth of the Bahá’í community from 1968 to 2001.

		1968	± 1986	2001
National Spiritual Assemblies		81	165	182
Local Spiritual Assemblies		6,840	18,232	11,740
Countries where the Bahá’í Faith is established:	Independent countries		187	190
	Dependent territories / overseas departments		45	46
Localities where Bahá’ís reside		31,572	>116,000	127,381
Indigenous tribes, races, and ethnic groups		1,179	>2,100	2,112
Languages into which Bahá’í literature is translated		417	800	802
Source: Bahá'í World Centre (2001).

Later editions of The Bahá’ís magazine included the following historical statistics:

	1954	1963	1968	1973	1979	1988	1994
National Spiritual Assemblies	12	56	81	113	125	149	172
Local Spiritual Assemblies	708	3,379	5,902	17,037	23,634	19,486	17,780
Localities where Bahá'ís reside	3,117	11,092	31,883	69,541	102,704	112,137	119,276

Notes and references

General remarks The Bahai.media Atlas of the World is an organized and commented collection of geographical and historical maps. The main page is therefore the portal to maps and cartography. That page contains links to entries by country, continent and by topic as well as general notes and references. Every entry has an introduction section in English. The text of the introduction(s) is based on the content of the Bahaipedia encyclopedia. For sources of the introduction see therefore the Bahaipedia entries linked to. The same goes for the texts in the history sections. Historical maps are included in the continent, country and dependency entries. The status of various entities is disputed. See the content for the entities concerned. Notes References