Talk:Religion in Angola

Numbers
There seems to be a bit of a dispute on numbers. Source 1, which states "According to the 2014 national census (the most recent), approximately 41 percent of the population are Roman Catholic and 38 percent Protestant.  Individuals not associated with any religious group constitute 12 percent of the population.  The remaining 9 percent is composed of animists, Muslims, Jews, Baha’is, and other religious groups." It then goes on to discuss how many Muslims might be in the country according to various sources. Source 2, uses a no longer active page by the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA). ARDA is a data repository not a source in its own right; the actual source used should be cited. The current page at ARDA on Angola seems to be https://www.thearda.com/world-religion/national-profiles?u=7c#IRFDEMOG A source it is using for religious demographics is the World Religion Database (WRD) 2020 (it also uses Source 1 though not which year and others), but, the WRD info has the most detail (even if the percentage of Christian  subdivisions it has adds up to 93.87% while the total it gives is 92.85 [rounding error can cause some discrepancy but not this much]). The numbers it has are 53.85% Catholics (which is quite a bit more than the census report), 27.38% Protestant, 6.39% Unaffiliated Christians, and 6.25% independent Christian. Then other highly specific numbers for other groups. Diving into the sources for the World Religion Database doesn't seem to show the 2014 census (the latest census it lists is 1960). Also used was a 2006 Gallup Poll (surveying 1,000 people), a 2002 Pew Global Attitudes Survey (780 people from "Luanda City and surrounding area only"), quite a few "Future of the Global Muslim Population" for various years which are estimates and seem to be calculated in 2011 (or before). Personally I would go with the census via the State Department Report. Erp (talk) 05:44, 6 January 2024 (UTC)