The UK is among the least religious countries in the world, according to a new survey. In a global ranking of 65 countries, the UK came six places from last, with 30% of the population calling themselves religious.
While 53% of people said they were not religious, only 13% said they were a convinced atheist and the remainder did not know how to define themselves.
This compares with 94% of people in Thailand and 93% of people in Armenia, Bangladesh, Georgia and Morocco who said they were religious.
At the bottom of the list was China where only 6% of people said they were religious while 61% said they were convinced atheists.
This was followed by Japan, where just 13% of people were religious, Sweden with 19%, Czech Republic with 23%, and the Netherlands and Hong Kong with 26%.
Jean-Marc Leger, president of Win/Gallup International, said globally an average of two-thirds of people still consider themselves religious. “Religion continues to dominate our everyday lives and we see that the total number of people who consider themselves to be religious is actually relatively high,” he said.
“Furthermore, with the trend of an increasingly religious youth globally, we can assume that the number of people who consider themselves religious will only continue to increase.”
Overall, those under 34 tend to be more religious than other age groups, as do those without a formal education, but in general religious people are a majority in all educational levels.
The poll questioned 63,898 people – about 1,000 in each country – at the end of last year.
