Visual Capitalist has mapped the world’s most and least religiously diverse countries, drawing on the religious composition data behind the recent global studies.

It is a useful corrective to the way religious demography is usually discussed. The interesting question is rarely which faith is largest in a country — it is whether a country contains one community or many, because that is what shapes its politics, its law and its tolerance of difference.

South Africa sits among the more diverse, which is a fact about this country worth knowing before anyone argues that any of its communities is a recent arrival.

Mapped: the world’s most and least religiously diverse countries — Iswardi Ishak for Visual Capitalist, 2 May 2026.

Related

Pew: How the Global Religious Landscape Changed 2010–2020

Shared by the South African Muslim Network (SAMNET) in the interest of understanding the value of research, religious diversity, and the global trends that shape socio-economic and political dynamics.