CHAPTER 6

WHERE ARE RELIGIONS
DISTRIBUTED?
 Universalizing religions
• Seek to appeal to all people
• About 60% of the world
 Ethnic religions
• Appeal to a smaller group of people living in one place
• About 25% of the world

WO R L D D I S T R I BU T I O N O F R E L I G I O N S
Figure 6-3

WO R L D P O P U L AT I O N B Y R E L I G I O N
Fig. 6-1a: Over twothirds of the world’s population belong to Christianity, Islam,
Hinduism, or Buddhism. Christianity is the single largest world religion.

WHERE ARE RELIGIONS
DISTRIBUTED?
 Universalizing religions
• Christianity
• The largest world religion (about 2 billion adherents)
• Many adherents in Europe, the Americas
• Three major branches
• Roman Catholicism (51 percent)
• Protestant Christianity (24 percent)
• Eastern Orthodox (11 percent)
• Other, smaller branches of Christianity comprise 14 percent of all Christians

D I S T R I BU T I O N O F C H R I S T I A N S I N T H E
U N I T E D S TAT E S
Figure 6-2

DIFFUSION OF CHRISTIANITY
Fig. 6-5: Christianity diffused from Palestine through the Roman Empire and continued diffusing through Europe after the fall of Rome. It was later replaced by Islam in much of the Mideast and North Africa.

WHERE ARE RELIGIONS
DISTRIBUTED?
 Universalizing religions
• Islam
• The second-largest world religion (about 1.3 billion adherents)
• Significant clusters in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia
• Core of Islamic belief = the five pillars
• Two significant branches
• Sunnis (83 percent)
• Shias or Shiites (16 percent)

DIFFUSION OF ISLAM
Fig. 6-6: Islam diffused rapidly and widely from its area of origin in Arabia. It eventually stretched from southeast Asia to West Africa.

WHERE ARE RELIGIONS
DISTRIBUTED?
 Universalizing religions
• Buddhism
• About 400 million adherents (difficult to quantify)
• Significant clusters in China, Southeast Asia
• The Four Noble Truths
• Three branches
• Mahayana (China, Japan, Korea)
• Theravada (Southeast Asia)
• Tantrayana (Tibet, Mongolia)

DIFFUSION OF BUDDHISM
Fig. 6-7: Buddhism diffused gradually from its origin in northeastern India to Sri Lanka, southeast Asia, and eventually China and Japan.

D I F F U S I O N O F U N I V E R S A L I Z I N G R E L I G I O N S
Fig. 6-4: Each of the three main universalizing religions diffused widely from its hearth.

WHERE ARE RELIGIONS
DISTRIBUTED?
 Ethnic religions
• Hinduism
• The third-largest religion in the world (900 million adherents)
• 97 percent of Hindus are found in India
• Many paths to spirituality

WHERE ARE RELIGIONS
DISTRIBUTED?
 Ethnic religions
• Other ethnic religions
• Confucianism (China)
• Daoism (China)
• Shinto (Japan)
• Judaism (today: the United States, Israel)
• The first monotheistic religion
• Ethnic African religions
• Animism

SHINTOISM AND BUDDHISM IN JAPAN
Fig. 6-8: Since Japanese can be both Shinto and Buddhist, there are many areas in
Japan where over two-thirds of the population are both Shinto and Buddhist.

Buddhism
Hinduism
Figure 6-5
Figure 6-4

R E L I G I O N S O F T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S

WHY DO RELIGIONS HAVE
DIFFERENT
DISTRIBUTIONS?

WHY DO RELIGIONS HAVE
DIFFERENT DISTRIBUTIONS?
 Origin of religions
• Universalizing: precise origins, tied to a specific founder
• Christianity
• Founder: Jesus
• Islam
• Prophet of Islam: Muhammad
• Buddhism
• Founder: Siddhartha Gautama

WHY DO RELIGIONS HAVE
DIFFERENT DISTRIBUTIONS?
 Origin of religions
• Ethnic: unclear or unknown origins, not tied to a specific founder
• Hinduism
• No clear founder
• Earliest use of Hinduism = sixth century B.C.
• Archaeological evidence dating from 2500 B.C.

WHY DO RELIGIONS HAVE
DIFFERENT DISTRIBUTIONS?
 Diffusion of religions
• Universalizing religions
• Christianity
• Diffuses via relocation and expansion diffusion
• Islam
• Diffuses to North Africa, South and Southeast Asia
• Buddhism
• Slow diffusion from the core

DIFFUSION OF UNIVERSALIZING
RELIGIONS
Figure 6-6

WHY DO RELIGIONS HAVE
DIFFERENT DISTRIBUTIONS?
 Limited diffusion of ethnic religions
• Universal religions usually compete with ethnic religions
• Examples of mingling:
• Christianity with African ethnic religions
• Buddhism with Confucianism in China and with Shinto in Japan
• Ethnic religions can diffuse with migration
• Judaism = exception

WHY DO RELIGIONS HAVE
DIFFERENT DISTRIBUTIONS?
 Holy places
• In universalizing religions
• Buddhist shrines
• Holy places in Islam = associated with the life of Muhammad
• In ethnic religions
• Holy places in Hinduism = closely tied to the physical geography of India
• Cosmogony in ethnic religions

DIFFUSION OF
UNIVERSALIZING
RELIGIONS
Figure 6-17

WHY DO RELIGIONS HAVE
DIFFERENT DISTRIBUTIONS?
 The calendar
• In ethnic religions = celebration of the seasons
• The Jewish calendar
• The solstice
• In universalizing religions = celebration of the founder’s life

HOLY SITES IN BUDDHISM
Fig. 6-
9: Most holy sites in Buddhism are locations of important events in Buddha’s life and are clustered in northeastern India and southern Nepal.

WHY DO RELIGIONS
ORGANIZE SPACE IN
DISTINCTIVE PATTERNS?

WHY DO RELIGIONS ORGANIZE
SPACE IN DISTINCTIVE WAYS?
 Places of worship
• Many types:
Christian churches,
Muslim mosques,
Jewish synagogues,
Hindu temples,
Buddhist and Shinto pagodas, Bahá’í houses of worship
Figure 6-19

CHURCH IN NEW MEXICO

ST. JOHN THE
BAPTIST IN
SAVANNAH

SHRINE
IN JAPAN

BUDDHIST WALL RELIEF
IN CHINA

HINDU TEMPLE IN
BANGLADESH

OMAR MOSQUE IN
JERUSALEM

MOSQUE IN TIMBUKTU,
MALI VS. ABUJA, NIGERIA

Mickve Israel
Scroll of
Isaiah
Western/Wailing Wall in Jerusalem

T H E G O L D E N T E M P L E
A M R I T S A R , I N D I A

BA H Á ' Í H O U S E S
O F W O R S H I P

ANGKOR
WAT
CAMBODIA

WHY DO RELIGIONS ORGANIZE
SPACE IN DISTINCTIVE WAYS?
 Sacred space
• Disposing of the dead
• Burial
• Other ways of disposing of the dead
• Religious settlements
• Religious place names

Figure 6-21

WHY DO RELIGIONS ORGANIZE
SPACE IN DISTINCTIVE WAYS?
 Administration of space
• Hierarchical religions
• Roman Catholics
• Latter-day Saints (Mormons)
• Locally autonomous religions
• Islam
• Protestant denominations

MECCA, ISLAM’S
HOLIEST CITY
Fig. 6-10: Makkah (Mecca) is the holiest city in Islam and is the site of pilgrimage for millions of Muslims each year. There are numerous holy sites in the city.

RO M A N C AT H O L I C H I E R A RC H Y I N T H E
U N I T E D S TAT E S
Figure 6-22

WHY DO TERRITORIAL
CONFLICTS ARISE AMONG
RELIGIOUS GROUPS?

WHY DO TERRITORIAL
CONFLICTS ARISE?
 Religions versus government policies
• Religion versus social change
• Taliban and Western values
• Hinduism and social inequality
• Caste system
• Religion versus communism
• Eastern Orthodoxy and Islam in the Soviet Union
• Buddhism in Southeast Asia

WHY DO TERRITORIAL
CONFLICTS ARISE?
 Religion versus religion
• Fundamentalism
• Religious wars in Ireland
• Religious wars in the Middle East
• Crusades (Christians in Muslim lands)
• Jews and Muslims in Palestine

TWO PERSPECTIVES ON
PALESTINE/ISRAEL
Figure 6-26

B O U N DA RY C H A N G E S I N
PA L E S T I N E / I S R A E L
Fig. 6-15: The UN partition plan for Palestine in 1947 contrasted with the boundaries that were established after the 1948
–49 War. Major changes later resulted from the 1967 War.

JERUSALEM
Fig. 6-14: The Old City of Jerusalem contains holy sites for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

ISRAEL’S “SEPARATION FENCE”
Figure 6-27

DISTRIBUTION OF
PROTESTANTS
IN IRELAND
Figure 6-23