Updates

The base year of the World Christian Database has been updated from mid-2015 to mid-2020.

This means that estimates for the number of religionists in every country of the world are now reconciled with the United Nations population projections for mid-2020. The update includes statistics on all world religions as well as Country data plus preliminary data on Peoples and Cities and Provinces.

Unless labelled otherwise, all data in WCD now refer to 2020.

Note that Christian denominations and communions remain labelled as AD 2015 until at least July, by which time the first estimates for 2020 denominations should be added, along with a second round of reconciliation of 2020 data in the Peoples table.

Unless otherwise specified, each field in the World Christian Database shows data in a single 'base' year which is currently 2015. In January, this base year will change so that all data for a country refer to 2020.

WCD also shows time series data about each religion from 1900 to 2050 for each country. Data for selected years across that time frame are updated quarterly, and the sample religion queries on these web pages have until now had a particular focus on growth from 2005 to 2015.

In preparation for the country base year changing to 2020 in January, the sample religion queries are changing this quarter to highlight the 20 year growth to 2020. The 2005 and 2025 data points, while still being available, are being replaced for the new default points of 2000 and 2020.

As always, users can add any available data points for their own use, but these sample queries for now will focus on 2020.