# How many Christians are there? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 29, 2001, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-christians-are-there/52189 "2001-01-29T01:47:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![romanticide](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f07891/32.png) [@romanticide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romanticide)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2001, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-christians-are-there/52189/1 "2001-01-29T01:47:09Z")
Short and simple: Does anyone know what percentage of Americans claim to be Christian (regardless of denomination)? I tried looking on the web and couldn’t find it anywhere. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![sulawesi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@sulawesi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sulawesi)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2001, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-christians-are-there/52189/2 "2001-01-29T02:17:57Z")
There’s a [column](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mreligio.html) about this (sort of). It has the numbers for the whole world though. I don’t know about just America. ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2001, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-christians-are-there/52189/3 "2001-01-29T02:30:22Z")
If you have Adobe Acrobat installed, try: [http://www.census.gov/prod/3/98pub/98statab/sasec1.pdf](http://www.census.gov/prod/3/98pub/98statab/sasec1.pdf) It gives some 1997 figures: 58% Protestant 26% Catholic 2% Jewish 6% Other 8% None. Apparently, because of Public Law 94-521, the US Census can’t ask mandatory questions about religion, so the figures will be very approximate. ---
**Author:** ![Alphagene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Alphagene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alphagene)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2001, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-christians-are-there/52189/4 "2001-01-29T06:34:23Z")
[This](http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/xnyap/20010117/lo/world_s_religions_1.html) news article, which is only about a week old, has some informatrion. The _World Christian Encyclopedia_ claims that there are “192 million people in U.S. Christian groups” divided into “33,820 denominations or similar distinct organizations.” Since the US population is around 276 million (8/2000 est.), that seems to give Christians about 70% of the pie, by my calculations. The book also claims that there are 1.9 billion (31%) Christians worldwide. ---
**Author:** ![dylan\_73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecccb3/32.png) [@dylan\_73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dylan_73)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2001, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-christians-are-there/52189/5 "2001-01-29T11:51:33Z")
144,000 of course 🙂