Talk Elections

I made this recently. It's not perfect as it comes from a multitude of sources stitched together over many different years with different measurement procedures, and I had to adjust some numbers to match sources, but I think overall it is a pretty accurate reflection of reality. I started with the most recent census data for different countries and found other sources to fill in the gaps.

() (http://i.imgur.com/LJMA8tQ.png)

That's a really awesome and fascinating map.  Great work.

If you split Christianity into Protestant/Catholic/Orthodox, I'd have done the same thing with Islam and Buddhism (the latter might be more difficult though). Still, amazing work.

I would like to, but the data really isn't there unfortunately.

I've seen it on country maps, but if there's nothing subnational that's fine.

Also, love the irony of the Italian province which holds Rome (Lazio) being the least Catholic. :P

Some of the patterns are quite interesting such as the Protestant belt in Central America or the more Buddhist vs. more secular areas of Japan.

Freedom map!!

Is Switzerland really predominatly Catholic?
I thought Calvinists formed the majority.

Well some parts of Switzerland were historically Protestant and others were Catholic. However with increasing secularization, Protestants tended to leave the church more than Catholics. The case is the same with other countries such as the Netherlands.

Yes, especially when it comes to nominal affiliation. Protestants have a habit of either lovign or hating the church of their birth.

But are the non-yellow areas in Japan light browns or light greys? If the latter, realisticidealist, how on earth did your sources distinguish between Buddhist and Shinto practice in Japan to that degree?

Great map!

I thought the UK was plurality Catholic now? (Speaking of the UK, why did you only divide them up by the Home Countries- I would have at least used the regional level)

Great job!

Loving Scotland.

England is nowhere near being plurality Catholic (not that the Census records this information) The most reliable indicator of denominationalism is the British Social Attitudes Survey which in 2013 suggested Britain as a whole was plurality Non-Religious (48%) Anglicans account for 20% and Catholics for 9%. Certainly at current trends Anglican might end up at 15% or so with Catholicism at around 10% (adherence to Catholicism, suggesting a cultural rather than religious association has flatlined since the survey began in 1983) with the Non-Religious breaking 55-60% (Nones are already at 60% amongst the under 30’s and about 42% in the formal Census) but England will not be plurality Catholic any time soon.

Switzerland had more Protestants than Catholics until the Mid-1970s:

In the 1970 Census, the Protestant share was 48.8% and the Catholic share was 46.7%

In the 1980 Census, the Protestant share was 45.3% and the Catholic share was 46.2%

In the 2000 Census, the Protestant share was 33.9% and the Catholic share was 42.3%

And finally, during the 2012 Structural Survey the Protestant share was 26.9% and the Catholic share was 38.2%

...

Basically, Switzerland today is 70% Christian, 5% Muslim, 2% Others and 23% without religion.

http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/en/index/themen/01/05/blank/key/religionen.html

()

Great work.

The Sub-Saharan African part of the map - with its divisions between denominations - is, well, *interesting*.

EDIT: Speaking of which, where did you get the data? And Furthermore, do you have a blank National subdivision World map to use as a template?

All very pretty and all that, but as you aren't (and this is certainly not your fault) comparing like with like, it's practical use is... er... small.

Great stats, thanks!

The trend towards Catholicism is partly due to the reasons other posters have mentioned already and because of immigration; the high number of Italian, Spanish and Portuguese immigrants, for example, has boosted Catholic strength in Switzerland.

The world map is a modified version of this one (http://www.lordsander.net/WorldSubdivisions.png). Most of my data sources are listed on the map. If you have a specific country in mind, I can probably find my source again.


I used data from Japan's Statistics Bureau. It appears they counted some people as practicing both Shinto and Buddhism. I'm not sure what their methodology beyond that is, though.

More detailed maps I finally finished:

() (http://i.imgur.com/rzv85dn.png)

() (http://i.imgur.com/dOk3Tv5.png)

() (http://i.imgur.com/7qc4BuK.png)

() (http://i.imgur.com/RHHSoJA.png)

() (http://i.imgur.com/s9qQXPk.png)

Hats off, gentlemen! A genius!

I wanna snuggle wuggle with the Czech Republic. 

Amazing.


British Columbia is where it's at!

It's so beautiful!

Very detailed. One of the most informative maps posted on the forum :)

Just a few points on my home turf. If you are calculating 'No Religion' for Scotland then census guidance suggests that should include those who not only actively declare 'No Religion' on their Census box, but also don't fill it in ('Religion not stated') as faith is a declaration yadda yadda. That boosts the grey somewhat.

I am left speechless. Amazing work, RI.

As a general rule, I discarded anyone who didn't respond to the question for all countries. This was mainly because the response rates varied heavily between countries, and doing so made the data more consistent across national borders.

glad to see that the Protestants are slowly gaining ground in China.

Excellent work. LOL Vietnam.

Wow. {slow clap}

One of the most interesting/new to me bits, I think, is how northern China is areligious but southern China is... Taoist mostly I guess? Possibly the pink areas have significant overlap with non-Han ethnicities?  Huh.  Like, I knew that China had some Muslims out west but I was pretty ignorant of most other patterns there.

Also I am wondering about the Sikhs in North America.  The tan bits in Guyana/Suriname, or something microscopically small in Canada that I can't see?

Yeah, the Sikhs are in Vancouver and Toronto.

Now that I'm doing that religious maps of Japan series, I'd appreciate realisticidealist's source for Japan if he still has it, since it's almost certainly significantly more recent than the source I've been using.

It's not nearly as detailed as what you've been using, and my methodology was a bit ad hoc. I started with the data here (http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/nenkan/1431-23.htm), which has total religious adherents, total religious organizations, and religious organizations by prefecture. I used religious organizations as a proxy for adherents, adjusting for the discrepancy in the national totals to reduce the overrepresentation of Christianity.

The big problem then is that the dataset allows individuals and organizations to be both Buddhist and Shinto. This time, I actually used your data as a guide to disentangling the two. It became a bit of guesswork at times, but I think the result is fairly close.

Is the island of non-Hindu concentration west of Calcutta also the heartland of the Naxalite insurgency?

Pretty impressive yes. Much more interesting outside of North America of course.

What's with those non-religious pockets in Mozambique?

Beautiful!

Specifically Surrey and Brampton, respectively (I believe). Would it be possible to see more detailed maps of Canada's major urban centres?

realisticidealist, have you ever considered submitting this to The Atlantic or similar publication? This sounds like the type of thing they'd go for. Not sure what the legalities around getting something to let them use it, though.

Also - can you confirm if the two blue Protestant dots south of Hangzhou are Wenzhou & its inland county?

I think the red army has the strongest position right now, IMO, as long as it shores up its defenses against the green army.  They could make a strong push up into blue North America.  With those two continents' bonus reinforcements, it'd be a cakewalk after that.

This is great! I had no idea China had a religious north-south division like that. I'm also surprised there's not more irreligiousity in Scandinavia, though I assume that's just a result of differences in how this is recorded from country to country.

As I understand it there's still a strong cultural/social assumption in Scandinavia that one will be baptized into the relevant Lutheran state church and use it for weddings and funerals, even if one is otherwise thoroughly irreligious.

It is called a "four corner Christian". Someone who only goes to church when he/she turns the four big corners: Baptism, confirmation, wedding and funeral.

It is gradually eroding in the big cities, but very much a reality elsewhere.

I suppose I could look into something like that. I'm not really sure how to approach such things, though.


Yes, I believe that's correct. The shapefile I used has it marked as Yongjia, but I believe they're the same.


Yeah, I can do that. Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver are the most interesting if I remember correctly.

EDIT: While I'm at it, some of the Australian and New Zealand cities are pretty interesting, too.

Thanks. I'd like Ottawa too, if possible :)

Toronto:
() (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/GALLERY/2947_23_04_15_11_24_52.png)

Montreal:
() (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/GALLERY/2947_23_04_15_11_25_45.png)

Ottawa:
() (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/GALLERY/2947_23_04_15_11_27_19.png)

Vancouver:
() (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/GALLERY/2947_23_04_15_11_29_33.png)

Sydney:
() (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/GALLERY/2947_23_04_15_11_31_18.png)

Melbourne:
() (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/GALLERY/2947_23_04_15_11_33_07.png)

Auckland:
() (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/GALLERY/2947_23_04_15_11_38_33.png)

Ireland:
() (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/GALLERY/2947_23_04_15_11_53_27.png)

Great Britain:
() (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/GALLERY/2947_23_04_15_12_03_34.png)

Switzerland:
() (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/GALLERY/2947_23_04_15_11_56_32.png)

Best map ever! The only improvement I can think of is splitting islam into Sunni, Shia, Ibadi. Regional data must be hard to come by but if it could be done for China and Subsahara Africa (places where I had never previously seen such detailed maps), it must be possible.

I can confirm the irreligion in northern China, didn't know it was just in the north though. Oh and isolated spots of blue in China are not a solely modern phenomenon. Look up the Taiping rebellion.

Two Muslim Census Tracts in Ottawa. Very interesting. Both areas are large social housing projects.

What are the Protestant divisions in the Republic of Ireland?

I'd love to split up Islam, but there are so few statistics on it with any sort of geographic specificity. I can only think of about two Islamic countries that ask Shia/Sunni/etc. I could estimate it if I had a proxy like ethnicity, but that's not asked that often either. Heck, it's rare to have an Islamic country that even has a census.

There are several Protestant areas in Ireland, but they all have ~200 people or fewer. I can't find much information on them. Most are close to the border with Northern Ireland. There's a handful of blue small areas in Dublin and three in Athlone.

Which city is the pocket of Catholicism in northern Iraq centered on?

It's the Nineveh Plains. I don't think it's centered on any one city, but it looks like the largest town in that district is Bakhdida. There's a lot of Orthodox there, too, or at least there were prior to ISIS.

What is the source of the data for China?

Remnants of old settlement.

Realisticidealist, may I ask what units you used to draw Ireland? I note that the Shannon Estuary and Loch Neagh have been 'eaten' by the surrounding places, so to speak.

Also, this is fantastic work. Well done.

I used Small Areas (http://www.cso.ie/en/census/census2011smallareapopulationstatisticssaps/).


I compiled China based on a number of sources. I started by using ethnicity data from the most recent census to estimate the number of Muslims, Buddhists, Indigenous, and some Taoists. I then used a slightly regressed version of Asia Harvest's estimate of the Christian population, and finally estimated the remaining number of Taoists/Chinese Folk Religionists based on UMich's China Religion Explorer and based on several local surveys by UCLA and others. I assumed the remainder was nonreligious.

I've heard a lot of positive things about my estimate.

The brown in Punjab is obviously Sikhism, but what are the brown counties in eastern India?

Thanks.

As others have said - very nice, interesting work.

It looks like Donyi-Polo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donyi-Polo) in Arunachal Pradesh and Sarnaism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarnaism) in Jharkhand. Both indigenous religions.

I suspected that it was either that or Jainism (well, I knew that the latter was unlikely, but Jainism is cool, so I hoped anyway). Thanks!

REDDIT!? You've cheated on us scolbert08!

Probably Vox Maps...


Thanks. I was hoping for about +1,000 or so with it, but it just kept climbing to over +3,000. I've actually started on a map that was suggested in the comments: a religious diversity map as measured by Shannon entropy. It will be a bit biased toward Christian countries, but from what I've seen of it it's still pretty interesting.

Bigger audience. Besides, I posted it here first. :P

If I hadn't, someone else would have posted it there. They've posted my maps from here on there before.

Apparently someone published these maps in The Independent (https://www.indy100.com/article/these-maps-will-change-the-way-you-think-about-religion--WJmWnGgjrvZ).  I was scrolling down my Facebook feed and they came up in the thumbnail.  Knew I recognized the style from somewhere.

Congrats, RI!

Well here's the thread he made for sharing the maps back in my proto-lurker days

RI,

Do you have a version of your final map with the subdivision borders overlapping?  When two subdivisions that are next to each other are the same shade (as is the case with much of the US), it is kind of difficult to see the distinction.

AMAZING map.

     I'm guessing the source for Russia was the 2012 Sreda Arena Atlas survey. Understandable as it was the most recent source at the time the map was made, but it's also a major outlier in terms of religious identification stats for that country. Overall a very interesting map though.