Talk:Buddhism by country

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1 General
2 Brazil
- 2.1 Hello
3 China
4 Taiwan
5 Revert Changes
6 changed percentages
7 East Africa
8 Percentages Chart
9 Table is not useful
10 China
11 Canada

[edit] General

I have added a reference to a Buddhist site which gives much higher figures. Given the success of Buddhism in surviving the severest possible persecution in e.g. Mongolia or Cambodia, these figures must be taken seriously. They are probably too high, but then the generally cited figures are clearly too low. SelwynC 21:44, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Brazil

There were 214,873 Buddhists in Brazil in 2000, according to our last census. Source: http://www.ibge.gov.br/home/estatistica/populacao/censo2000/primeiros_resultados_amostra/brasil/pdf/tabela_1_1_2.pdf (Budismo = Buddhism). PMLF 02:43, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That list looks bad :)) I wrote a program to do all the math, sort, and generate the table. I will help you out here OneGuy 07:24, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Since so many countries don't have the percentage of Buddhists available, I am not sure if it's the right idea to list all of the countries in this case. Anyway, if you have percentage of a missing country available, post it on talk page (with your source) and I will recreate the table with the new percentage added. OneGuy 08:05, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

My calculations are wrong? I got the percentages from adherents.com. Please provide the source if you have a different number. OneGuy 08:17, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hello

Go to the CIA factbook, this adherents.com link, and information about religions about countries in wikipedia and calculate. Also, the Malaysia info comes from the Philips World Gazetter. Population of Chinese is 25%. How can only 11% of the population is Buddhist?Mr Tan Mr Tan, 08:23, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You are incorrect about China. According to State Deprtment, for China (including Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau)

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35396.htm

Approximately 8 percent of the population is Buddhist

I don't know how you can claim 78% or 25% is Buddhist OneGuy 08:28, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Most of Latvians are Christians!!!!!!! Correct your facts at CIA world factbook. Mr Tan Mr Tan, 08:23, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ok, that was a typo then. I will check it and fix it. In any case, stop editing the page and discuss each case OneGuy 08:28, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] China

No way China has 78% of Buddhists! Here is a list of largest Buddhists countries on adherents.com

http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_buddhist.html

China is not listed! OneGuy 08:32, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Also, adherents.com has a very old list (3 or 4 years old). The population list that you are using is from 2005! Instead of plugging the exact old Buddhist population number from adherents.com, use the percentage and calculate the new population for 2005 OneGuy 08:36, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The source for this is something like: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35396.htm

"Buddhists make up the largest body of organized religious believers. The Government estimates that there are more than 100 million Buddhists, most of whom are from the dominant Han ethnic group. However, it is difficult to estimate accurately the number of Buddhists because they do not have congregational memberships and often do not participate in public ceremonies. The Government reports that there are 16,000 Buddhist temples and monasteries and more than 200,000 nuns and monks."

This makes it clear that the source is a government which deliberately lists only the highly committed. This is fair enough but should not be included in lists which give nominal figures for e.g. Christians. A comparable figure for actual practising Christians in the U.K. might be about 15% rather than the 60% actually given for Protestants.

The only fair way to give a figure for Mainland China is to assume that the percentage of Buddhists is the same as for Taiwan i.e. 25% or for Singapore i.e. 42.5%. Although Buddhism might have grown in popularity in Taiwan more than it has on the Mainland, this is counter-balanced by a number of largely Buddhist minority areas (Tibetans, Mongolians, Manchu, Sipsong panna) included as part of China.

What is at all events clear is that the largest body of 'organized religious believers' will have a further large number of sympathizers. 78% is possible, allowing that many would also consider themselves Confucianists, Taoists or just Chinese traditionalists. Compare the Census figures for Japan. 30% seems a reasonable compromise. (SelwynC 20:57, 16 December 2005 (UTC)) I am amending the figures for China on this basis. SelwynC 21:02, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

HOW many Buddhists are there in China? According to the article, Buddhism in China, and the US Department of State website linked above, "estimates of the number of Buddhists in China range from 70 million to 150 million."

[edit] Taiwan

Since 8% of Buddhists in China includes Taiwan (according to State Department), I am going to remove Taiwan from the list since that is counted twice OneGuy 09:03, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

opps, it was Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau, not Taiwan OneGuy 09:20, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Revert Changes

I reverted the changes. I think that we should do these slowly. I explain why.

I agree with Brazil, there is nothing wrong. I'm sorry, it has to be removed for the time being as it clashes with the wrong results of others. My main point goes here.

Why Lesotho is not accepted:

Lesotho is 80% Christians, not Buddhists!

Using calculations from my calculator, by dividing 1,020,000/1,300,000 X 100%, you get 78%. Different sources state differently. I'm terribly sorry, but 8% is ridiculous. Neve fully trust websites. Calculate on your own.

Go to Chinese Malaysian. Can it be only 11% of the population is Buddhist? The majorty of the Chinese are Buddhist! Of the 25% Chinese, the Philips Gazetter states 17.5% is Buddhist.

- Evidence:[1].

Thirdly, I think I have to recorrect the facts accurately. You did not add Brunei, where 13% is Buddhist, nor South Korea. Cambodia is 95% Buddhist, not 89%. Go to Demographics of Cambodia or the CIA factbook once again.

Once again, I hope we can build an interesting WP.

Mr Tan, 19:00 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I will fix Lesotho. China has 102 million Buddhist, not 1.02 billion! Fix your caculator :)

North Korea doesn't have 26% of Buddhist population!. Here are two sources

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35402.htm

The number of religious believers is unknown but has been estimated by the Government at 10,000 Protestants, 10,000 Buddhists, and 4,000 Catholics.

Another source

http://www.adherents.com/Na/Na_86.html

Korea, North 1.67%

These figures are ridiculous. See: http://www.adherents.com/adhloc/Wh_177.html#434

There, two figures are given 400,000 (1999?) and 2,253, 200 (1998?). Neither is reliable but the true figure certainly lies between the two. Official government figures must be ignored. Alternatively, Communist era figures for Christianity in the former Soviet bloc would have to be adopted in order to obtain comparability. (SelwynC 20:56, 16 December 2005 (UTC))

I am altering it on the basis that the percentage for North Korea will be around the same as for South Korea. Obviously this cannot be exactly correct, but it will give an approximate figure of th eright order of magnitude. SelwynC 22:01, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

As for Japan,

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35400.htm

According to statistics published by the Agency for Cultural Affairs in December 2002, approximately 49.9 percent of citizens adhered to Shintoism, 44.2 percent to Buddhism, 5.0 percent to "other" religions, and 0.9 percent to Christianity. However, Shintoism and Buddhism are not mutually exclusive religions, and the figures do not represent the ratio of actual practitioners; most members claim to observe both.

For Mongolia,

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35419.htm

Buddhism and the country's traditions are tied closely, and it appears likely that almost all ethnic Mongolians (93 percent of the population) practice some form of Buddhism. Lamaist Buddhism of the Tibetan variety is the traditional and dominant religion.

Malasyia

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2001/5604.htm

According to government census figures, in 1991 59 percent of the population were Muslim; 18 percent practiced Buddhism;

I will fix Malasyia

Anyway, don't revert to a mess version of the article. I will fix a percentage and recreate the list if you point some factual error OneGuy 11:19, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I see what's wrong with your China calculation. China's population is not 1,300,000. It's 1,306,313,812 i.e 1,300,000,000 OneGuy 11:26, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You are missing zeros everywhere from your China calculations. Try this 102,000,000/1,300,000,000 * 100 = 7.8 is the answer. Much closer to 8% I had from State Department. Also, keep in mind that China population was not 1.3 billion 3 or 4 years ago when adherents.com posted this. So 8% is the right answer OneGuy 11:42, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Singapore

The total population figures for Singapore cannot be right. See http://www.singstat.gov.sg/keystats/c2000/topline13.pdf That gives 3,263,000 in the year 2,000. Dec 2005 (SelwynC)

[edit] changed percentages

I changed many of the percentages to US State Department's International Religious Freedom Report 2004 [2].

These reports are more up to date than both CIA factbook and adherents.com. I also found them more accurate. If anyone finds an error (in most cases a typo with percentage), let me know OneGuy 04:32, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] East Africa

I told you, Mr Tan, you cannot directly change the region table. The table region are simple produced by country table. To change East Africa in table region, you have to fix Tanzania. Is your claim that there are no Buddhist in Tanzania? That's refuted by

http://www.buddhanet.net/africame/africadir.htm

Buddhist Temple and Meditation Center Plot no 606,P.O.Box 6665, Mindu Street, West Upanga Dar es Salaam 255 Tanzania Tel: + 255 22 2150422 Mobile: 255 741 451745 Fax: + 255 22 2150422 Email: Pannasekara@hotmail.com Web site: www.geocities.com/pannasekara Tradition: Theravada Spiritual Director: Rev. Ilukpitiye Pannasekara Chief Buddhist monk for the African continent

OneGuy 10:34, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Here is a web site of a Buddhist in Tanzania, so obviousl.y there are Buddhists in East Africa http://www.geocities.com/pannasekara/ OneGuy 10:44, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Percentages Chart

I don't think the percentages chart is correct. If you look at recorded number of Buddhists in a given country, the United States for example, it's just the estimated percentage (1%) multiplied by the population (295,734,134). So the column shows 2,957,341. There's no way that exactly 1.00000% of the population is Buddhist in the United States, so the number is incorrect and perhaps that last column should be removed.

- Dave

[edit] Table is not useful

Any protest to removing the "n/a" entries with redlinks from the table? If there are nearly 0 Buddhists in a country (i.e., Iraq) then it does not seem helpful to have an entry and redlink for them. Ashibaka tock 21:25, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, the main problem is that rather many of them do in fact contain significant (but not large) numbers of Buddhists. That is obviously true for countries such as Poland, Greece, Ukraine, Belarus in Europe. And probably also for countries in South America which do not list Buddhists. The CIA in particular is not much interested in seeking out Buddhists ! And Buddhists are not as organizationally or mission- orientated as some. It might be best to given a minimal figure of 0.1 for all the European countries which have N/A at present. Perhaps not for the Balkans ? But certainly also for the Americas. At present, the absence of figures for many countries (i.e. those whose governments do not provide figures) distorts the overall regional percentages. SelwynC 21:39, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] China

I am revising the entry for China, which is totally out of wack with any other estimate. User:SelwynC made this change a year ago, jumping up the percentage of Buddhists from 8% to 30%, with no source. The US Dept of State's International Religious Freedom Report 2005 here gives the percentage as 8%, and that estimate is consistent with adherents.com's estimate here. I am reporting the result to only four significant figures; it is downright silly to be more accurate here.

Similarly, for N Korea, SelwynC used the S Korea percentages. This is clearly original research. I replaced it with 400,000 in round figures, the latest figure available at [3].

The rest of this table is a mess, but China alone had the numbers off by a few hundred million; the rest I don't have time to deal with now. Let us be careful to avoid violating WP:OR on this page! bikeable (talk) 21:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I also took out rows not used in the country table (really, they don't help a bit, and clutter the page terribly). The "top 20" table at bottom is pretty useless since the figures are so uncertain, but I at least made it internally consistent.

Someone should go through this, clean and prune, and round everything to a reasonable number of significant digits. But that's too much effort for tonight...! bikeable (talk) 21:46, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

United Arab Emirates have some interestingly high number of buddhists, this doesnt sound plausable that theyd be on the top 20 list.. And, croats dislike being put into the balkans, and preffer central or at least south eastern europe. And I doubt the number anyways--83.131.159.9 13:59, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's only 50,000 people we're talking about. They're presumably immigrant laborers from some East Asian country. Depending on which country it is (for instance, China), it might be questionable whether 50,000 of them are actually Buddhists, though.—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 17:31, 21 October 2006 (UTC)