At the beginning of this year 9 per cent of the Norwegian population, or 431 000, were members of religious and life stance communities outside the Church of Norway. About one quarter of the members are living in Oslo.
As of 1 January 2009, 431 000 persons in Norway were members of religious and life stance communities outside the Church of Norway; an increase of 19 500 compared with the previous year.
More than half of the members, 235 000, were members of Christian communities. A total of 81 100 were members of life stance communities and accounted for approximately 19 per cent of all members of communities outside the Church of Norway. 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 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 electronically 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 9 December 2009 © Statistics Norway