The Living Bread Research

How We Count Churches

Every figure on these pages is an honest, sourced estimate. Here is exactly where the numbers come from, how they are built, and what they do and do not claim. We never invent a total.

Sources

• Church locations come from OpenStreetMap (ODbL), the open map of the world. We count places of worship tagged as Christian.
• Population comes from Wikidata.
• Christian share of the population comes from the Pew Research Center and national censuses, with the year shown on each country page.

How the count is derived

We take the OpenStreetMap places of worship in a country, keep those tagged as Christian, and count them per country and per city. Population and Christian share are joined from the sources above to put the count in context. The result is a curated compilation of open data, not proprietary research.

What the number is, and is not

The count is a growing directory sample, not a national census. OpenStreetMap coverage varies by country, so the true number of churches is always higher than the number we map. We say so on every page, and we never present a single figure as the whole truth.

Updates and corrections

The directory grows as OpenStreetMap grows and as churches claim and correct their own profiles. Demographic sources are cited with their year. Found an error? A church leader can claim a profile and correct it.

How to cite and reuse

The compilation is free to use with attribution (CC BY 4.0). Download the CSV or JSON, browse the full table by country, or see how to cite The Living Bread.