World Christian Database: field definitions

Data source: Gina A. Zurlo, ed., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2026).

Table Field Description
language Main country code The main or hub country of this language.
language Main country ID The main or hub country of this language.
language Mother tongue speakers Mother-tongue speakers in 2025. A blank population indicates that there is no people group with this language as their primary language. Populations are cumulative between language heirachy levels.
language Muslims Number of mother-tongue speakers who are Muslims.
language New Testament date Earliest date (-and most recent date) a New Testament was published in (any dialect) of this language.
language People count The number of people groups with this language code.
language People with gospel access % The percentage of this language's mother-tongue speakers with access to the gospel.
language WLC language code World Language Classification language code.
people Agnostics Agnostic population for this people group in this country. These are persons professing no religion, or professing unbelief or non-belief, non-believers, agnostics, freethinkers, liberal thinkers, non-religious humanists, indifference to both religion and atheism, apathetic, opposed on principle neither to religion nor to atheism; sometimes termed secularists or materialists; also post-Christian, dechristianized or de-religionized populations.
people Atheists Atheist Population among this people group. Atheists are militantly anti-religious or anti-Christian agnostics, secularists, or marxists.
people Autoglossonym People’s own name for their language.
people Baha'is Baha’i population for this people group in this country. Baha’is are followers of the Baha’i World Faith, founded by Baha’u’llah, since 1844. In government censuses Baha’is are usually counted as Muslims or Hindus and not shown separately.
people Bible availability Availability of a translations of the New Testament or Bible into this language (including multiple dialects) .
people Buddhists Buddhist population for this people group in this country. Followers of the Buddha, include: (a) Mahayana (Greater Vehicle) or Northern Buddhism; (b) Theravada (Teaching of the Elders) or Southern Buddhism, stigmatized by Mahayanists as Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle, i.e. available to fewer people), actually the older, purer form of Buddhism; (c) Vajrayana, Mantrayana, Guhyamantrayana, or Tantrayana (Esoteric Vehicle), known as Tantrism, Shingon or Lamaism; and (d) traditional Buddhist sects, but excluding neo-Buddhist new religions or religious movements.
people Chinese folk-religionists Chinese folk-religionists population for this people group in this country.
people Christian growth % p.a. 1900–2025 The average annual growth rate of the Christian population from 1900 to the base year 2025.
people Christians Christian population for this people group in this country.
people Christians 1900 Christians in this people group in 1900.
people Confucianists Confucianist population for this people group in this country. Confucians are non-Chinese followers of Confucius and Confucianism; mostly Koreans and in Korea.
people Country code Four-letter abbreviation assigned to country for database purposes.
people Country ID ID of the country in which this people group is located.
people Country name Short name of this country (usually as designated by the UN).
people Daoists Daoist population for this people group in this country. These are followers of one of the 3 major religions of China, regarded as part of Chinese folk religion.
people Ethnic religionists Ethnic religionist population for this people group in this country. "Ethnic religionists" is a collective term for primal religionists, animists, spirit-worshippers, shamanists, ancestor-venerators, polytheists, pantheists, traditionalists (in Africa), local or tribal folk-religionists; including adherents of neo-paganism or non-Christian local or tribal syncretistic or nativistic movements, cargo cults, witchcraft eradication cults, possession healing movements, tribal messianic movements; still occasionally termed pagans, heathen, fetishists; usually confined each to a single tribe or people, hence tribal or local as opposed to ‘universal’ (open to any or all peoples).
people Ethnicity The 'ethnic' component of ethno-linguistic peoples.
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Religions

Data on 18 categories of religion, including non-religious, by country, province, and people.

Countries and regions

Data on all religions, Christian activities, and trends.

Denominations

Membership data, year begun, and rates of change.

Cities & provinces

Population and religion data on all major cities & provinces.

Peoples & languages

Detailed information covering religion, culture, and geography.

Archive

A repository of historical data, including a chronology of Christianity from the 1st to 21st centuries.