Baháʼí statistics


Sources such as Encyclopædia Britannica or the World Christian Encyclopedia have listed Baháʼí membership as over 7 million. More conservative estimates produced by the Baháʼí World News Service reports a Baháʼí membership of more than 5 million worldwide, in "virtually every country" and many territories. As such, the Baháʼí Faith is recognized as the second-most geographically widespread religion after Christianity, and the only religion to have grown faster than the population of the world in all major areas over the last century.
Membership data on a relatively new, worldwide religion are difficult to arrive at. The religion is almost entirely contained in a single, organised community, but the Baháʼí population is spread out and not in a majority anywhere. Populations are not assigned a Baháʼí religious adherence by birth, as is the case with other major religions such as Islam and Christianity. Few religious surveys include the Baháʼí Faith due to the high sample size required to reduce the margin of error, and those that have included the Baháʼí Faith are known to underestimate or overinflate many proportionally small groups. Additionally, Baháʼí membership data does not break out active participation from the total number of people who have expressed their belief.
The official estimate of "more than five million Baháʼís" in the world was originally arrived at in 1991 by the Baháʼí World Centre and has not changed since. The official agencies of the religion have focused on publishing more concrete data, such as numbers of local and national spiritual assemblies, countries and territories represented, languages and tribes represented, and publishing trusts.

Definition of membership

In the 1930s the Baháʼís of the United States and Canada began requiring new adherents to sign a declaration of faith, stating their belief in Baháʼu'lláh, the Báb, and ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, and an understanding that there are laws and institutions to obey. The original purpose of signing a declaration card was to allow followers to apply for lawful exemption from active military service. The signature of a card later became optional in Canada, but in the US is still used for records and administrative requirements. Many countries follow the pattern of the US and Canada.
Other than signing a card and being acknowledged by a Spiritual Assembly, there is no initiation or requirement of attendance to remain on the official roll sheets. Members receive regular mailings unless they request not to be contacted.

Difficulties in enumeration

The fact that the religion is diffuse and proportionally small are major barriers to demographic research by outsiders. Even in the United States, where significant resources are dedicated to gathering data, the Baháʼí Faith is often omitted from religious surveys due to the high sample size required to reduce the margin of error. In some countries the Baháʼí Faith is illegal and Baháʼís endure some degree of persecution, making it difficult for even Baháʼís to maintain a count.
Adherents.com, a website dedicated to collecting statistics on world religions, made the following comments about Baháʼí membership:
Most denominations make no effort at all to maintain a national membership database and must rely on local churches or surveys of the general population. Local church membership rolls are often maintained poorly because there may be no need for an official membership list and local congregations sometimes do not provide their denomination's membership data even when asked.

Worldwide figures

192819491968± 19862006
National Spiritual Assemblies71181165179
Local Spiritual Assemblies1025956,84018,232
Countries where the Baháʼí Faith is established:
independent countries		3692187191
Localities where Baháʼís reside573231531,572>116,000127,381
Indigenous tribes, races,
and ethnic groups		1,179>2,1002,112
Languages into which Baháʼí literature is translated417800
Baháʼí Publishing Trusts92633

Baháʼí sources

Recent

From the early 1960s until the late 1990s, the Baha'i population of the United States went from around 10,000 to 140,000 on official rolls, but the number of members with known addresses in 1998 was only about half the total. In recent years, the United States Baháʼí community has been releasing detailed membership statistics.
Baháʼís and other sources such as official government census data or other some third party organizations can vary. Sometimes the Baháʼí sourced numbers are higher and sometimes lower. Also, census data has sometimes been criticized, as in the case of India.
NationCensus or survey dataThe Association of Religion
Data Archives data, 2010		Baháʼí-cited data
Barbados178 in 20103,337"about 400" in 2010
Belize202 in 20107,742
Canada18,945 in 201146,826>30,000
Guyana500 in 200211,787
India4,572 in 20111,898,000>2,000,000
Mauritius645 in 201123,742
United States84,000 in 2001512,864175,000 in 2014 excluding Alaska and Hawai'i

Encyclopedias

News reports