Singapore is the most religiously diverse country in the world

According to a Pew Research Centre Survey, Singapore is the most religiously diverse country in the world. Singapore scored 9 in the research agency’s index of religious diversity, the highest score among all 232 countries and territories studied.

The study calculated Religious Diversity Index (RDI) scores for countries, regions and the world based on the shares of eight major world religions (Buddhists, Christians, folk religions, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, other religions considered as a group, and the religiously unaffiliated).

The index is on a scale from 0-10, with 10 being maximum possible diversity if each of the eight groups constitutes an equal share the population. The RDI is divided into four ranges: very high (the top 5% of scores), high (the next highest 15% of scores, which works out to 16% because of tie scores), moderate (the next 20% of scores) and low (the bottom 59% of scores). Data are for 2010.

The study said a third of Singapore’s population is Buddhist (34%), while 18% are Christian, 16% are religiously unaffiliated, 14% are Muslim, 5% are Hindu and <1% are Jewish. The remainder of the population belongs to folk or traditional religions (2%) or to other religions considered as a group (10%).