Muslims make up 23% of the world’s population

This map of the world shows each country’s relative size based on its Muslim population

A new demographic study, “Mapping the Muslim Population,” shows that there are currently 1.57 billion Muslims in the world, representing 23 percent of the world’s population of 6.9 billion people. The study, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life is a preview of a study the organization plans to release in 2010. The upcoming study will estimate growth rates of the Muslim population and project the size of the future population.

Here are some key findings from the recent research:

* While Muslims are found on all five inhabited continents, more than 60% of the global Muslim population is in Asia and about 20% is in the Middle East and North Africa.

* The Middle East-North Africa region has the highest percentage of Muslim-majority countries. More than half of the 20 countries and territories in that region have populations that are approximately 95% Muslim or greater.

* More than 300 million Muslims, or one-fifth of the world’s Muslim population, live in countries where Islam is not the majority religion. These minority Muslim populations are often quite large. India, for example, has the third-largest population of Muslims worldwide. China has more Muslims than Syria, while Russia is home to more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined.

* Of the total Muslim population, 10-13% are Shia Muslims and 87-90% are Sunni Muslims. Most Shias (between 68% and 80%) live in just four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq.

Why do you think it’s important for Pew to conduct this research?