Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

The UK is one of the least religious countries in the world, survey finds

China, Sweden and the Czech Republic are also mostly made up of non-believers

Christopher Hooton
Monday 13 April 2015 16:31 BST
Comments

The majority of Brits are atheist or agnostic, a poll has found, with only 30% of the population describing themselves as religious.

53% of respondents said they were "not religious", though only 13% said they were a "convinced atheist" and the remainder said they "did not know".

The survey, carried out by WIN/Gallup International, questioned 63,898 people around the world (around a thousand per country) creating a ranking of countries by their religiousness.

Out of 65 countries, the UK was sixth from bottom, vastly less religious than Thailand (94% religious) and Armenia, Bangladesh, Georgia and Morocco (93%).

The least religious country was found to be China, where only 6% of people say are they are religious with 61% being confirmed atheists.

Other countries at the bottom of the list included Japan, Sweden, Czech Republic, Netherlands and Hong Kong.

"Religion continues to dominate our everyday lives and we see that the total number of people who consider themselves to be religious is actually relatively high," Jean-Marc Leger, president of Win/Gallup, commented, with faith among younger people being surprisingly high.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in