Demographics of Germany - Religion

Religion

According to organizational reportings based on projections in 2008 about 34.1% Germans have no registered religious denomination. According to a poll by Der Spiegel magazine, 45% believe in God, and just a quarter in Jesus Christ.

Christianity is the largest religion in Germany, with around 49.4 million adherents (62.8%) in 2008 of which 24.5 million are Protestants (29.9%) belonging to the EKD and 24.9 million are Catholics (30.0%) in 2008, the remainder belong to small denominations (each (considerably ) less than 0.5% of the German population). The second largest religion is Islam with an estimated 3.8 to 4.3 million adherents (4.6 to 5.2%) followed by Buddhism and Judaism, both with around 200,000 adherents (0.3%). Hinduism has some 90,000 adherents (0.1%) and Sikhism 75,000 (0.1%). All other religious communities in Germany have fewer than 50,000 (<0.1%) adherents.

Protestantism is concentrated in the north and east and Roman Catholicism is concentrated in the south and west. The current Pope, Benedict XVI, was born in Bavaria. Non-religious people, including atheists and agnostics might make as many as 55%, and are especially numerous in the former East Germany and major metropolitan areas.

Of the roughly 4 million Muslims, most are Sunnis and Alevites from Turkey, but there are a small number of Shi'ites and other denominations. 1.6% of the country's overall population declare themselves Orthodox Christians, Serbs and Greeks being the most numerous. Germany has Europe's third-largest Jewish population (after France and the United Kingdom). In 2004, twice as many Jews from former Soviet republics settled in Germany as in Israel, bringing the total Jewish population to more than 200,000, compared to 30,000 prior to German reunification. Large cities with significant Jewish populations include Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich. Around 250,000 active Buddhists live in Germany; 50% of them are Asian immigrants.

According to the Eurobarometer Poll 2005, 47% of German citizens agreed with the statement "I believe there is a God", whereas 25% agreed with "I believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 25% said "I do not believe there is any sort of spirit, god, or life force".