Christianity now counts more believers in absolute numbers than at any point in recorded history, with global estimates showing a faith that continues to expand across continents even as religious life changes sharply in parts of the West.
Pew Research Center reported that Christians remained the world’s largest religious group in 2020, reaching 2.3 billion people after adding 122 million from 2010 to 2020. Pew’s earlier global Christianity study placed the 2010 figure at 2.18 billion, or nearly one-third of the world’s population at the time. By 2025, estimates cited by the Overseas Ministries Study Center from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity placed Christians at 2.6 billion, or 32.3% of the world’s 8 billion people.
The biggest shift is where Christianity is growing. The same 2025 statistical overview stated that “the global South is home to 69% of all Christians in the world.” That means most Christians now live outside the old Western centers of Europe and North America. Africa, Latin America, and Asia now carry much of the weight of global Christian life, from churches and schools to families, worship communities, and local leadership.
Pew’s 2020 report showed how large that shift has become. Sub-Saharan Africa had already surpassed Europe as the region with the largest share of the world’s Christians, with 30.7% of all Christians living there compared with 22.3% in Europe. Pew linked the change to higher natural increase in Africa and widespread Christian disaffiliation in Western Europe.
The global picture is more complex than a simple story of decline. Pew found that Christianity’s share of the world population fell to 28.8% in 2020 because Christian growth did not keep pace with overall population growth. That context matters. Still, the total number of Christians continues to rise, and the faith’s demographic center has moved deeper into the Global South. Christianity is no longer shaped mainly by the West. Its future is increasingly being written by communities across Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
