Singapore is the most
religiously diverse country in the world
The Independent -
November 29, 2016
According to a Pew
Research Centre Survey, Singapore is the most religiously diverse
country in the world. Singapore scored 9 in the research
agency’s index of religious diversity, the highest score among
all 232 countries and territories studied.
The study calculated
Religious Diversity Index (RDI) scores for countries, regions and
the world based on the shares of eight major world religions
(Buddhists, Christians, folk religions, Hindus, Jews,
Muslims, other religions considered as a group, and the
religiously unaffiliated).
The index is on a scale
from 0-10, with 10 being maximum possible diversity if each of
the eight groups constitutes an equal share the population. The RDI
is divided into four ranges: very high (the top 5% of scores),
high (the next highest 15% of scores, which works out to 16%
because of tie scores), moderate (the next 20% of scores) and
low (the bottom 59% of scores). Data are for 2010.
The study said a
third of Singapore’s population is Buddhist (34%), while 18% are
Christian, 16% are religiously unaffiliated, 14% are Muslim, 5% are
Hindu and <1% are Jewish. The remainder of the population
belongs to folk or traditional religions (2%) or to other religions
considered as a group (10%).