The broad collection of cross-national Pew Enquiry Center surveys analyzed in this study on age gaps in religious commitment tin can likewise be used to expect at the ways religious observance varies amidst all adults – defined as people ages 18 and older – in different parts of the world.

The four standard measures of religious delivery (affiliation, importance of religion, worship attendance and frequency of prayer) used in this report may not be as suitable for all religious groups. In particular, rates of prayer and attendance at worship services by and large are seen as reliable indicators of observance within Abrahamic faiths – Christianity, Islam and Judaism – just they may not exist as applicative for Buddhism, Hinduism and other Eastern religions. In fact, religious identity itself is often conceived of differently in East Asia, where observance is more a matter of culture and tradition as opposed to membership in a particular group. (For more on religious amalgamation effectually the world, meet the Pew Research Center's 2015 study "The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050.")

Nevertheless, by these measures, some global patterns are clear: The well-nigh religious countries are in Africa, the Middle Eastward, S Asia and Latin America, while people generally are less religious in Europe, North America, Eastern asia and Australia. For a word of theories that endeavour to explicate these regional variations, see Chapter i.

Religion is very important to most people in Africa, the Middle East and South asia

Overall, in the average country surveyed, 54% of adults say organized religion is very important in their lives. Even so, levels of religious commitment vary widely effectually the world, every bit well every bit between countries within the same geographic surface area. In the Asia-Pacific region, for instance, the share of those who say religion is very of import in their daily lives is highest in Muslim-majority countries such as Islamic republic of pakistan, Indonesia and Afghanistan; in these countries, more than 90% say organized religion is very important. Meanwhile, Japan (10%) and China (3%), where majorities of the population are religiously unaffiliated, have the everyman shares of people who say this.

At that place is as well wide variation in Latin America, with the share of those who say faith is very important ranging from 90% in Republic of honduras to 29% in Uruguay. In general, religion is more of import to people in Central America and less important moving south toward Argentina and Chile and north to Mexico.

Farther to the north, U.S. respondents (53%) are about twice as likely as Canadians (27%) to say that faith is very of import.

The share of adults who consider faith to exist very important in their lives is generally low in Europe, where 23% of survey respondents in the average land say this. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia and Romania, where at least one-half of people say organized religion is very important, are above the regional average on this measure, while in nigh countries in the Baltics, Scandinavia and Western Europe, fewer than one-in-five say religion is very of import in their lives.

In sub-Saharan Africa, on the other manus, the share of respondents who consider organized religion very important in their daily lives is much larger, ranging from a high of 98% in Ethiopia to a low of 71% in Botswana. In all but two countries in the region (South Africa and Botswana), more than 80% of adults say religion is very important to them, yielding a regional average of 89% who say this.

In the Middle East and North Africa, at least 70% of people say organized religion is very important to them in all countries surveyed except Lebanese republic (57%) and State of israel (36%).

How the importance of organized religion varies geographically among Christians and Muslims

Christians and Muslims – the two largest religious groups in the world – have substantial populations in several regions, and Pew Research Center data let analysis of how religious commitment varies amidst members of these two groups in unlike parts of the earth.

Christians in sub-Saharan Africa are most likely to say religion is very important in their lives, while those in Russian federation and Western Europe are to the lowest degree likely to say this. Muslims, meanwhile, widely charge per unit religion as very of import in their lives in Africa, the Center Due east and S and Southeast Asia; religion is less important to Muslims in Europe and the post-Soviet republics of Fundamental Asia. U.Due south. Muslims fall somewhere in between.

Worship omnipresence low in Europe

About iv-in-ten adults in the average country surveyed say they attend religious services at least weekly. But this figure varies widely in different parts of the world, in part due to geographic differences in religious commitment and in part due to religious norms. For example, different those who practice Abrahamic faiths, Buddhists and Hindus do non find weekly holy days, and weekly communal worship services are not necessarily a part of their religious traditions.

Countries in sub-Saharan Africa with predominantly Christian or Muslim populations tend to take the world's highest levels of regular worship attendance; in the average country in that region, 79% of adults say they nourish services weekly. In 12 sub-Saharan African countries surveyed, eight-in-ten or more than adults are weekly attenders; no country surveyed in any other region reaches this level.

Attendance across Europe is at the other finish of the spectrum. Bated from Poland, where 42% of respondents nourish weekly, every other European country in this analysis has rates of attendance at or below 25%. Several countries in Scandinavia and Western Europe are in the single digits.

The other major regions fall somewhere in between these two extremes, with wide variation inside each region. In the Americas, weekly omnipresence ranges from 75% in Guatemala to 14% in Uruguay. Slightly more one-third of U.S. adults report attending weekly, compared with 20% of Canadians.

In Asia and the Pacific, weekly omnipresence is highest in Indonesia (72%) and everyman in Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Mainland china, all of which have rates of weekly attendance in the single digits. (In Prc, just i% of adults written report attention religious services weekly.) And in the Centre East-North Africa region, most Jordanians (64%) and Egyptians (62%) attend services weekly, while only xxx% of Israelis do.

Daily prayer is especially common in Muslim-majority countries

Compared with weekly worship attendance, daily prayer is somewhat more mutual around the world. In the average land across 105 surveyed, nearly half of adults (49%) say they pray every day, including majorities in sub-Saharan Africa (75%), the Eye Eastward and Due north Africa (70%) and Latin America (62%).

Prayer frequency varies widely across Asia. Fully 96% of Afghans and 87% of Iranians – both overwhelmingly Muslim populations – written report praying daily, reflecting a global blueprint of high levels of prayer in Muslim-majority countries (prayer is ane of the Five Pillars of Islam). Daily prayer is too very common in Hindu-majority India, where 75% pray daily, just it is much less common in some other parts of Asia, such as Vietnam (fourteen%) and Prc (ane%).

Low levels of prayer can besides be found across Europe, where, in the average land, fewer than i-in-four respondents pray daily. In Due north America, meanwhile, Canadian respondents are less than half as likely every bit their U.Due south. counterparts to pray daily (25% vs. 55%).