Demographics

A comprehensive 2009 demographic study of 232 countries and territories reported that 23% of the global population or 1.57 billion people are Muslims. Of those, 87–90% are Sunni and 10–13% are Shi'a, with a small minority belonging to other sects. Approximately 50 countries are Muslim-majority, and Arabs account for around 20% of all Muslims worldwide.

Although the Arab world is often regarded as the heartland of Islam, the majority of Muslims live in Asia and Africa. Approximately 62% of the world's Muslims live in Asia, with over 683 million adherents in Indonesia, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. In the Middle East, non-Arab countries such as Turkey and Iran are the largest Muslim-majority countries; in Africa, Egypt and Nigeria have the most populous Muslim communities.According to a recent study in the United States, the People's Republic of China has the eighth highest Muslim population with up to 65.3 million individuals but other figures show only 20 million. Islam is the second largest religion after Christianity in many European countries, and is slowly catching up to that status in the Americas and Australia.