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Demographics


As of around 2020 there were about 8 million Bahá'ís in the world. However in 2013, demographic scholars Johnson & Grim wrote that, "The Baha'i Faith is the only religion to have grown faster in every United Nations region over the past 100 years than the general population; Bahaʼi(sic) was thus the fastest-growing religion between 1910 and 2010, growing at least twice as fast as the population of almost every UN region." (See Growth of religion.)

As of 2020 the largest percentages of the Bahá'ís are in sub-Saharan Africa (29.9%) and South Asia (26.8%), followed by Southeast Asia (12.7%) and Latin America (12.2%). Lesser populations are in North America (7.6%) and the Middle East/North Africa (6.2%), with the smallest populations in Europe (2.0%), Australasia (1.6%), and Northeast Asia (0.9%). 2015 statistics of the internationally recognized religion have it as the largest numerical religious minority relative to its national population in Iran, Panama, Belize, Bolivia, Zambia, and Papua New Guinea; and the third largest religion in Chad, and Kenya.

Since its beginnings in the 19th century the vast majority of Baháʼís were found in Iran up until the 1950s; those converts from outside Iran were mostly found in India and the western world. From the roughly 200,000 Baháʼís of 1950, the religion grew to over 4 million by the late 1980s with widespread distribution. Most of that growth in the 20th century was seeded out of North America from planned migration of individuals. Yet, rather than being a cultural spread from either Iran or North America, in 2001, sociologist David Barrett wrote that the Baháʼí Faith is, "A world religion with no racial or national focus". However the growth has not been even. From the late 1920s to the late 1980s the religion was harrased and banned in the Eastern Block of the Soviets,  and then again from the 1970s into the 1990s across countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The most intense opposition has been in Iran and neighboring Shia majority countries, considered by some scholars and watch agencies as a case of attempted genocide. Meanwhile in other times or places the religion has experienced surges in growth. Before it was banned the religion "hugely increased" in Africa south of the Sahara. In 1989 the Universal House of Justice named Bolivia, Bangladesh, Haiti, India, Liberia, Peru, the Philippines, and Taiwan as countries where growth in the religion had been notable in the previous decades. Bahá'í sources claimed "more than five million" Bahá'ís in 1991-2. However since around 2001 the Universal House of Justice has prioritized statistics of the community by their levels of activity rather than simply their population of avowed adherents or numbers of local assemblies.

Being the majority population of no country, and most often is only a tiny fraction of the country's population, results in problems of under-reporting. In addition, there are examples where the adherents have their highest density among sociological minorities in societies who face their own challenges.