How many people in the world identify with a particular religion? Religious compositions vary a lot from country to country. In the United Kingdom, Christianity is the most popular, and following no religion is becoming increasingly common, particularly among young people. But it can be hard to get a sense of how these differences stack up globally. The Pew Research Center publishes estimates of religious affiliation across the world. You can see the global breakdown in the chart for 2020 (the most recent year available). It shows the number of people who identify with each religion. Pew counts people by the religion they report, regardless of their beliefs or practices. You can see that Christians are the largest group, with 2.3 billion people, followed by Muslims, with 2 billion. People with no religious affiliation come close behind. Those not affiliated with any religion are among the largest groups in the world. But this undersells religion’s reach: when we add up all religious groups, most people in the world — around three in four — identify with a religion. Those with no religious affiliation are still a minority. (written by @_HannahRitchie)

Europe is older, but Latin America is aging faster. The median age of a country or region is the age that divides its population into two equal parts: half of the people are older, and half are younger. As the population ages, the median age rises. That’s what this chart tracks. It shows how the median age has changed across world regions from 2000 to 2023, the most recent year for which the UN publishes estimates. The first thing that stands out is perhaps the least surprising: some regions have much older populations than others. Africa is very young: half of its population is younger than 19. Europe is much older: half of its population is over 42. But there’s a second point that receives less attention in public discussions: how quickly this is changing. Of the six world regions, Latin America is where the median age has increased the most since 2000. It rose by a third, from 23 to 31 years, in a bit less than a generation. Europe’s population is older, but the median age has been rising more quickly in Latin America this century. That’s largely due to fertility falling later and faster in the latter. (written by @EOrtizOspina)