At the beginning of this year, 10 per cent of the Norwegian population, or 484 500, were members of religious and life stance communities outside the Church of Norway. This represents an increase of about 8 per cent compared to the previous year. The Christian communities had the largest increase.
As of 1 January 2011, 484 500 persons in Norway were members of religious and life stance communities; an increase of 37 700 compared with the previous year.
More than half of the members, 266 800, were members of Christian communities. A total of
84 500 were members of life stance communities and accounted for approximately 17 per cent of all members of communities. Furthermore, various Islamic communities accounted for around 22 per cent of the members, while the members of Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh communities accounted for 3 per cent, 1.2 per cent and 0.6 per cent of the members respectively.
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The statistics are based on annual applications for central government subsidies submitted by religious and life stance communities to the county governor. The membership lists are sent to the Brønnøysund Register Centre via the county governor for control and elimination of duplicates. As of 2005, the statistics are not comparable with previous years since the basis for the data has been changed. |
Published 6 December 2011 © Statistics Norway