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LONDON, ENGLAND, October 11, 2004: Christianity is the main religion in Great Britain begins this government census report. There were 41 million Christians in 2001, making up almost three quarters of the population (72 per cent — down from 97.4% in 1900). This group included the Church of England, Church of Scotland, Church in Wales, Catholic, Protestant and all other Christian denominations. People with no religion formed the second largest group, comprising 15 per cent of the population. (HPI note: The government refused to tabulate what apparently was a very large number of people that put down their religion as “Jedi Knight” — from Star Wars movies — as a form of protest, lumping them instead into “no religion.”) About one in 20 (5 per cent) of the population belonged to a non-Christian religious denomination.



Muslims were the largest religious group after Christians. There were 1.6 million Muslims living in Britain in 2001. This group comprised 3 per cent of the total population and over half (52 per cent) of the non-Christian religious population. Hindus were the second largest non-Christian religious group. There were over half a million Hindus (558,000), comprising 1 per cent of the total population and 18 per cent of the non-Christian religious population. There were just over a third of a million Sikhs (336,000), making up 0.6 per cent of the total population and 11 per cent of the non-Christian religious population. There were just over a quarter of a million Jewish people (267,000), constituting 0.5 per cent of the total population and 9 per cent of the non-Christian religious group. Buddhists numbered 149,000 people in 2001, comprising 0.3 per cent of the population of Great Britain. The religion question was the only voluntary question in the 2001 Census and 8 per cent of people chose not to state their religion.



In England and Wales, 151,000 people belonged to religious groups which did not fall into any of the main religions. The largest of these were Spiritualists (32,000) and Pagans (31,000), followed by Jain (15,000), Wicca (7,000), Rastafarian (5,000), Baha’i (5,000) and Zoroastrian (4,000).

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