Christians make up about the same portion of the world\u2019s population today as they did a century ago. But that apparent stability masks a momentous shift. Although Europe and the Americas still are home to a majority of the world\u2019s Christians (63%), that share is much lower than it was in 1910 (93%). The proportion of Europeans and Americans who are Christian has dropped from 95% in 1910 to 76% in 2010 in Europe as a whole, and from 96% to 86% in the Americas as a whole.<\/p>\n\n
At the same time, Christianity has experienced enormous growth in sub-Saharan Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, two areas that were home to relatively few Christians at the beginning of the 20th century. The share of the population that is Christian in sub-Saharan Africa climbed from 9% in 1910 to 63% in 2010, and in the Asia-Pacific regionfrom 3% to 7%. Christianity today \u2014 unlike a century ago \u2014 is truly a global faith. (See world maps<\/a> weighted by Christian population in 1910 and 2010.) Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Although Europe and the Americas still are home to a majority of the world\u2019s Christians (63%), that share is much lower than it was in 1910 (93%).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"relatedPosts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0},"categories":[],"bylines":[791],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-16572","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","bylines-pew-research-center-staff","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states"],"label":"Short Read","post_parent":0,"word_count":157,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2012\/01\/05\/where-christians-live-large-global-shifts-in-last-century\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Where Christians Live: Large Global Shifts in Last Century","description":"Although Europe and the Americas still are home to a majority of the world\u2019s Christians (63%), that share is much lower than it was in 1910 (93%).","og_title":"Where Christians Live: Large Global Shifts in Last Century","og_description":"Although Europe and the Americas still are home to a majority of the world\u2019s Christians (63%), that share is much lower than it was in 1910 (93%).","schema_type":"Article","noindex":false,"canonical_url":"","primary_terms":[],"custom_schema":[],"og_image":0,"indexnow_submitted_at":null,"gsc_index_status":null},"prepublish_checks":{},"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"relatedPostsOrdered":[],"bylinesOrdered":[{"key":"2cc2f7781c9c7af20d4ee2c65d29cd3e","termId":607}],"acknowledgementsOrdered":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/16572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/short-read"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/16572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105380,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/16572\/revisions\/105380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16572"},{"taxonomy":"bylines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bylines?post=16572"},{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=16572"},{"taxonomy":"datasets","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/datasets?post=16572"},{"taxonomy":"_post_visibility","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_post_visibility?post=16572"},{"taxonomy":"formats","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/formats?post=16572"},{"taxonomy":"_fund_pool","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_fund_pool?post=16572"},{"taxonomy":"languages","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/languages?post=16572"},{"taxonomy":"regions-countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions-countries?post=16572"},{"taxonomy":"research-teams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-teams?post=16572"},{"taxonomy":"workflow-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/workflow-status?post=16572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}