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The Global Geography of Immense Personal Wealth 3: Mapping the Primary Residences of Persons with Assets Between Six and Ten Billion U.S. Dollars 

Article-Grid, Economic Geography, World /

The past several GeoCurrents posts have examined the geography of the world’s wealthiest people by mapping their primary residences. As these posts showed, those with fortunes greater than $20 billion are primarily concentrated in the United States, west-central Europe, and maritime East Asia, with secondary concentrations in “greater Mumbai,” Dubai, and Moscow. Similar patterns are found for those with fortunes between $10 and $20 billion, although here Dubai and Mumbai decline in significance.

This post continues the same theme, moving down the ladder to map the primary residence of those with assets between $6 and $10 billion. Because the number of individuals increases as assets decline, I have divided this bracket into three groups and mapped them separately. Even so, so many billionaires are concentrated in a few metropolitan areas that it becomes difficult to map them using the techniques that I have employed here. On the three maps posted below, for example, the New York City region appears as something of a black blur composed of numerous overlapping circles. This problem is most evident on the third map, where the Frankfurt region of western Germany is blanketed by more than 15 circles, each representing one mega-billionaire, and thus appears as a black blob. (The concentration of mega-billionaires in this area, particularly in the small city of Ingelheim, is explained in the previous GeoCurrents post.)

Map of the Primary Residence of Persons with Assets from $8-$10 Billion in May 2026

Map of the Primary Residence of Persons with Assets from $7-$8 Billion in May 2026

Map of the Primary Residence of Persons with Assets from $6-$7 Billion, May 2026

The geographical patterns found in these maps are roughly similar to those seen in the higher wealth categories. A large majority of those with assets between $6 and $10 billion still reside in the United States, west-central Europe, and maritime East Asia. To be sure, there are some intriguing differences. In today’s maps, East Asia and the United States show a higher degree of clustering in a few metropolitan areas than they did in the maps depicting higher levels of wealth. In the U.S., southeastern Florida, the San Francisco Bay Area, and, especially, the New York City region are particularly prominent. In East Asia, primary clusters are found in the lower Yangtze and the greater Hong Kong/Shenzhen regions of China, with secondary knots in Beijing and northern Taiwan. I was surprised by the relative paucity of billionaire in these tiers in South Korea and, especially, Japan. In Europe, the map of fortunes in the $8-$10 billion category shows a somewhat dispersed pattern, but clustering in the continent’s central swath is seen again on the following two maps. In the three maps posted here, I was struck by the relatively lack of circles centered on London, unlike the earlier maps showing larger fortunes. Throughout the entire sequence of maps, the former communist zone of east-central Europe is notable for its absence of mega-billionaires, with Prague in Czechia forming the sole exception.

As one moves down the list of billionaires, an increasing number of cities outside the core zones of extreme private wealth appear on the map. Overall, however, I was surprised at how small this tally is. For the entire 696-person category of those with $6 billion or more in assets (as of mid-May, 2026), most of the world remains blank. Other than three mega-billionaires in Nigeria and two in South Africa, sub-Saharan Africa is unrepresented. It is a similar story in North Africa and Southwest Asia. Dubai is home to many super-wealthy individuals, while Tel Aviv has seven, Riyadh two, and Istanbul one; otherwise, the region has no representatives. India is the only country in South Asia to make the list. Southeast Asia has a handful of mega-billionaires, almost all of whom live in Singapore, Bangkok, Jakarta, and western peninsular Malaysia. Central America has no representatives while South America has only a few. All but one of Russia’s ultra-wealthy persons lives in Moscow. Additional cities outside the core zones that are home to more than two mega-billionaires include Delhi (with 6), Mexico City (4), Almaty (in Kazakhstan, with 3), São Paulo (3), and Sydney (3).

Are the same patterns repeated, as I suspect they are, as one moves futher down the list? This is an interesting question that deserves consideration. I have, however, growth weary of making these maps, although I am still considering mapping the distribution of mega-billionaire in the United States. Perhaps I should learn to work with AI agents and have them do the task for me. I do wonder how capable they would be.

The Global Geography of Immense Personal Wealth 3: Mapping the Primary Residences of Persons with Assets Between Six and Ten Billion U.S. Dollars  Read More »

The Geography of Immense Personal Wealth 2; Fortunes Between $10-$20 Billion

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The previous GeoCurrents post showed that most of the world’s wealthiest persons live in just a few areas, with primary concentrations in the United States, west-central Europe, and maritime East Asia, and secondary concentrations in Moscow, Dubai, and “Greater Mumbai” (see the map posted below). The post concluded by asking whether the same patterns would be found at the next tier of wealth. To provide an answer, I mapped the primary residences of those with assets valued between $10 and $20 billion, using the same Forbes list of “the world’s real-time billionaires.” Because this category is so large, I had to cover it in two maps, one showing fortunes between $15 and $20 billion and the other between $10 and $15. These maps are also posted below.

World Regions of Vast Personal Fortunes

Map of the Primary Residences of Persons with Fortunes Between $15 and $20 Billion

Map of the Primary Residences of Persons with Fortunes Between $10 and $15 Billion

As can be seen by comparing the original map of fortunes over $20 billion and these new maps, slightly different spatial patterns emerge in these slightly lower levels of the global wealth hierarchy. To be sure, a large majority of those with fortunes between $10 and $20 billion still live in the three primary regions originally identified: the United States, west-central Europe, and maritime East Asia. Relatively few, however, reside in what I called the “secondary centers,” with only four in Moscow, two in Dubai, and two in Mumbai.

More intriguing to my mind is the lower degree of dispersion found within the three primary regions at this level of wealth. Let us begin with the United States. In the $15-20 B. category, for example, there are more representatives living in California and the corridor extending from Philadelphia to Boston than in the rest of the country put together. In $10-15 B. category, distinct concentrations can be seen in a few metro areas: the San Francisco Bay Area, Houston, southeastern Florida, and, especially, New York City and its inner suburbs. Intriguingly, the Seattle area, which figures prominently on the map of fortunes above $20 B., has no representatives in these lower categories, although nearby Vancouver and Victoria in Canada have one each.

Somewhat similar patterns are found in the other two global regions of vast personal fortunes.  “Maritime East Asia” is reduced in size on the maps showing the $10-$20 B. range, with no representatives in Japan and only four in South Korea (all of whom live in Seoul). On the $15-$20 B. map, one sees a clear concentration in coastal southern China, a region extending from the lower Yangtze region to the Hong Kong/Shenzhen area. On the $10-$15 B. map, this region essentially breaks down into two clumps, one at its northern extremity and the other at its southern. In west-central Europe, two pronounced concentrations are seen on the $10-$15 B. map, one in southwestern England, clearly centered on London, and the other in Switzerland.

Giver these intriguing differences in residential patterns by wealth level among the world’s richest people, I have decided to see what emerges at the next tier of vast fortunes. Stay tuned ….

The Geography of Immense Personal Wealth 2; Fortunes Between $10-$20 Billion Read More »

The Global Geography of Immense Personal Wealth

Article-Grid, Economic Geography, World /

The United States is well known for its concentration of wealth at the upper end of the spectrum. A household in the United States must have a net worth of roughly 13 to 14 million US dollars to be in the “top one percent,” whereas in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom the comparable figures are around 3.5 million, at least according to the AI assessments that I have consulted. The imbalance is even greater at the uppermost peak of personal wealth. The constantly updated Forbes list of “the world’s real-time billionaires” informed me that on May 12, 2016, the top eleven mega-billionaires all reside in the United States. Intriguingly, just a day earlier the same list placed France’s Bernard Arnault (along with several unspecified members of his family) in tenth place (see the table posted below). Evidently, the Arnaults were bypassed within 24 hours by both Jim Walton (& family) and Warren Buffett. (As can be inferred from the preceding sentence, the Forbes list is primarily based on individual wealth but sometimes ranks of the basis of family assets. I have ignored this important distinction in the maps and text that follow, as I have no way to disentangle personal from family wealth.)

Forbes List of the World’s Wealthiest People

Scanning through this list of the world’s richest people made me curious about the global geography of vast personal fortunes. I therefore decided to map the locations of the primary residences of the top 138 billionaires, those with assets valued at or above 20 billion US dollars on May 11, 2026. I used the same technique that I employed last December when mapping the world’s top publicly traded corporation by market capitalization; in both cases, I placed a hollow circle over the approximate main locations of those in question, with the circles roughly scaled to monetary “worth.” If multiple billionaires (primarily) live in the same city, their circles have been slightly displaced to maintain visibility. I relied on Google’s AI service (Gemini) to determine the locations of the current main residences of these 138 mega-billionaires.

Map of the World’s Largest Personal Fortunes

As the map shows, the primary residences of those with immense personal fortunes are concentrated in three major regions of the world (the United States, west-central Europe, and maritime East Asia) and three minor regions (Dubai, Moscow, and “Greater Mumbai”). As the map also indicates, only 15 of the 138 top billionaires live outside of these six regions. Their primary residences are indicated in pink text on the map.

The United States is clearly the world’s top region of immense personal fortunes, with the largest number of mega-billionaires controlling the largest stockpiles of wealth. It is also the most extensive region of these regions, as its mega-billionaires are more spatially dispersed than those of maritime East Asia and, especially, west-central Europe. I will further examine the distribution of huge fortunes in the U.S. in a later post. (Note that I have intentionally limited this region to the United States, excluding the one Canadian mega-billionaire, who is based in nearby Toronto. I have done so largely because of the strikingly different economic and political environments of the two countries, although this was not an easy judgement call.)

The compact region of huge fortunes that I have labeled “west-central Europe” extends from London south to southeastern France and eastward to Czechia. It is anchored by Switzerland and southern Germany. Despite appearances, Italy is not represented on the map. Three Italians are included, but they have evidently relocated their primary residences to nearby countries. This disjunction shows both the hazard of relying on AI for such information (see the figure below) and the propensity of the super-wealthy to seek favorable countries for their primary residences. Note also that one of the largest circles in Europe falls outside this core region. It represents the 132.5-billion-dollar fortune of Amancio Ortega, a pioneer of “fast fashion” who is most closely identified with the Zara retail chain. Ortega lives primarily in an apartment in the peripheral Spanish city La Coruña (officially, “A Coruña” in the local Galician language). He moved there with his family at the age of 14, leaving school and apprenticing himself to a local shirtmaker. Intriguingly, the other outlying circle in Europe, which is centered on Stockholm, represents another fortune derived from “fast fashion,” that of Stefan Persson, former chair of H&M.

Do the Richest Italians Live In Italy? Contradictory AI Answers

The region that I label “maritime East Asia” is anchored on coastal China but extends across South Korea (with one circle) to Japan (with four). Intriguingly, one of these circles in Japan represents a prominent Chinese businessman, Jack Ma; as Gemini tells me, “As of 2026, Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma has been primarily living in Tokyo, Japan, following a long-term, low-profile lifestyle away from China after regulatory crackdowns on his businesses. He frequently travels to other locations, with his family recently acquiring a £19.5 million mansion in London’s Belgravia district.” This maritime East Asian region is also depicted as including Hanoi in northern Vietnam, which is home to Nhật Vượng, leader of the Vingroup conglomerate. It does not include the (supposedly) autonomous region of Ningxia in central China, which is home to Dang Yanbao, chairman of an important coal and chemical company (residing in the city of Yinchuan).

The three secondary regions of mega-billionaire concentration are focused on a single city. All Russian oligarchs with fortunes greater than $20 billion live in Moscow. Most Indian mega-billionaires live in Mumbai, although one resides in nearby Pune and another in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, which is not too far off (hence “Greater Mumbai”). Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, has a growing number of foreign-born mega-billionaires, most of whom are attracted by its low taxes and business-friendly policies.

Outside of these six core regions, only three countries are home to more than one mega-billionaire: Australia (with three); Mexico (with two); and Singapore (with two). Interestingly, two of Australia’s three representatives live in Perth, far from the country’s southeastern core. This seeming oddity is indicative of Western Australia’s vast mineral resources. As can be seen on the map, only one mega-billionaire lives in South America, although the fortune of Chile’s Iris Fontbona is vast indeed (over $50 billion). Africa is represented only by Aliko Dangote of Lagos, Nigeria. His firm, the Dangote group, is noted for its interests in cement, sugar, fertilizer, and oil refining.

I am curious about whether these geographical patterns hold when one moves down the list to consider fortunes between 10 and 20 billion US dollars, which are still extraordinarily large. This may be the topic of a future GeoCurrents post.

Finally, in the interest of legibility I have divided these data into four categories, mapping each one separately. The first map posted below shows fortunes greater than $50 billion, the second those between $30 and $50 billion, the third those between $25 and 30 billion, and the fourth those between $20 and 25 billion.

Primary Residence of Persons with More that $20 Billion

Primary Residence of Persons with $30-$50 Billion, Map

Primary Residence of Persons with $25-$30 Billion, Map

Primary Residence of Persons with $25-$30 Billion, Map

The Global Geography of Immense Personal Wealth Read More »

Remapping the World’s Largest Lakes

Article-Grid, Physical Geography, World /

Wikipedia’s article on the world’s largest lakes by surface area features a fantastic map of the fifteen largest, using the dymaxion projection devised by the inimitable Buckminster Fuller. As can be seen, more than half fit into the category of the “Greater Great Lakes of North America” as defined in the previous GeoCurrents article. It is interesting that all these lakes except Ladoga are arrayed along a single sinuous curve that extends from Lake Malawi in southern Africa to Lake Ontario in eastern North America. But intriguing though it is, this arrangement is essentially just a feature of the map projection.

Screenshot

Close inspection reveals that the Wikipedia map includes a significant “ghost”: the Aral Sea, which was until recently a huge brackish lake in Central Asia. It has largely vanished over the past half-century due to the diversion of most of the flow of the Anu Darya and Syr Darya rivers that feed it into agricultural fields. I have redrafted the Wikipedia map to show this lake as it existed circa 1960.  It was then, by conventional criteria, the third largest lake in the world (by surface area).

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The third map, posted below, takes this redrafting exercise two more steps. Limiting its purview to freshwater lakes, it deletes the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest lake by a considerable margin. (It does include Lake Balkhash in Central Asia; although the eastern part of this lake is saline, its larger western segment is fresh.) Using strict hydrological criteria, it also combines Huron and Michigan into a single entity, which can be called either Lake Michigan-Huron or Lake Huron-Michigan. This water body is actually the world’s largest freshwater lake.

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Remapping the World’s Largest Lakes Read More »

Mapping Tobacco Use Now and in 1500

Article-Grid, psychoactive substances, World /

Tobacco use is plummeting over most of the world. This decline is easily seen on a map showing the change in the percentage of the adult population that uses tobacco from 2000 to 2020. If the World Health Organization data used to make this map are accurate, only five reporting countries saw an increase in tobacco users during this period: Croatia, Jordan, Oman, Republic of Congo, and Indonesia. Several countries, most notably China and France, reported small drops. But most saw major declines; in Bolivia, the percentage of adult tobacco users went from 37.1 to 12.7.

Screenshot

The regional patterns found on this map are intriguing. Tobacco use declined sharply over most of Africa, which already had relatively low rates of consumption. The increase in the Republic of Congo is therefore anomalous. Most of Latin America also saw a major decline in tobacco use. The patterns in Europe are more mixed, with sharp drops characterizing the north but with more modest declines elsewhere –  and a surprising increase in Croatia. Substantial drops are also evident in South Asia, particularly India. The same pattern is found in Southeast Asia, with the notable exception of Indonesia. In contrast, most of the Middle East and North Africa reported more modest declines, or, in the case of Jordan and Oman, small increases.

As the second map shows, many countries had high rates of tobacco use in 2000, with quite a few exceeding 50% of the adult population. Because tobacco consumption tends to be gender biased, in some countries substantial majorities of men were users at this time, Burma (Myanmar) most notably. South Asia also reported high rates of tobacco consumption a quarter century ago. Central and Eastern Europe was another area of widespread consumption, focused on the Balkans. Latin America reported more variable patterns, with low rates of use in Guatemala, Colombia, and Ecuador but with much higher rates in Chile and Cuba. In Africa the relatively high figure posted for Sierra Leone seems odd. Madagascar, a country of mixed African and Southeast Asian ancestry, intriguingly groups more with Southeast Asia than it does with Africa in regard to tobacco use.

Screenshot

As the third map shows, the regional patterns of tobacco use found in 2020 are roughly similar to those found on the map of 2000, albeit at lower levels almost across the board. Several countries stand out for their persistently high levels of consumption, including Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Burma, and Greece.

Screenshot

In the year 1500, tobacco use was largely confined to the Western Hemisphere. In the Eastern Hemisphere, it was found only in Australia. Indigenous Australians over a large portion of the continent chewed the leaves of several plants in the Nicotiana genus, as well as those of a related nicotine-containing plant, Duboisia hopwoodii. These leaves, mixed with ash, are called pituri.

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In the Western Hemisphere in 1500 tobacco use was ubiquitous, found almost everywhere except the high Arctic. Several species of the genus Nicotiana were widely cultivated and traded and served vital ritual, cultural, social, and even political functions. Some supposedly non-agricultural hunting and gathering societies grew tobacco, and others gathered wild tobacco leaves. The widely consumed species Nicotiana rustica was noted for its potency, with up to nine times more nicotine than N. tabacum as well as hallucinogenic harmala alkaloids. As a result, N. rustica was often used by shamans for religious experiences. Tobacco was also widely employed for medical purposes by indigenous peoples of North and South America. Such practices persist in some communities to this day. Despite its dangers, tobacco does have analgesic properties and several other demonstrable medical uses.

The geography of tobacco will be further explored in several forthcoming GeoCurrents posts.

Mapping Tobacco Use Now and in 1500 Read More »

Coffee World Vs Tea World: Mapping the Consumption of Hot, Caffeinated Drinks

Article-Grid, psychoactive substances, World /

Although both tea and coffee are consumed over most of the world, there is little overlap in the lists of the top tea and coffee consuming countries. This pattern is easily seen on the map posted below, which shows the world’s 16 top tea and coffee consuming countries on a per capita basis. Only the Netherlands makes both lists.

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The top tea consuming countries are more geographically dispersed than the top coffee consuming countries. High levels of coffee consumption are found primarily in Europe, particularly in the Nordic countries. Outside of Europe, only Brazil and Canada make the list, and only Canada ranks in the top 10 (coming in at 10th place). The United States occupies the 25th slot, a sharp drop from its position a century ago. In 1900, the U.S. took in roughly half the world’s coffee exports. Its coffee consumption peaked around 1945 and subsequently began a slow but steady decline until about 1995. This drop is usually attributed to the marked increase in soft-drink consumption.

High levels of tea consumption, unlike those of coffee, are geographically dispersed. Countries in the top-sixteen list are in Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania. China – where tea drinking originated – ranks in the 21st position. Intriguingly several countries that were once noted for their coffee culture largely switched to tea, Turkey most prominently. After World War I, the new Turkish Republic encouraged tea growing and drinking, partly to reduce imports. Coffee, unlike tea, cannot be grown in the country.

At the dawn of the early modern era five hundred years ago, tea and coffee were regional drinks. Both beverages subsequently underwent globalization, a process that accelerated in the mid-17th century. The two maps posted below show the approximate areas of tea and coffee origination, as well as the main areas of consumption around the year 1500. As it is difficult to find reliable information for many areas, these maps should be regarded as provisional approximations.

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The main cultivation zones of both tea and coffee have also experienced profound shifts over the centuries. The final map shows some of the major geographical changes in coffee production. Initially, wild beans were gathered in the southern highlands of Ethiopia. By 1500, coffee growing was well established in the highlands of Yemen across the Red Sea. Problems with supply prompted European imperial powers to establish coffee plantations in their own domains by the early 1700s. Slave-grown coffee from the Caribbean, particularly Haiti, came to dominate the export market. After the successful Haitian rebellion (1791-1804), the main area of coffee production shifted to Asia, particularly to the British-controlled island of Sri Lanka and the Dutch-controlled island of Java. The fungal disease called coffee leaf rust, however, devastated Asian coffee plantations after 1860. Most were abandoned, with plantation owners in in Sri Lanka quickly switching to tea. The main coffee-production zone then shifted to Latin America, which long remained free of rust. By 1900, roughly 75% of the world’s coffee crop was grown in Brazil. But although Brazil remained the global leader, by the 1920s superior coffee was being produced in Colombia and Central America. Meanwhile, extensive coffee cultivation returned to Asia with the introduction of hardier but lower-quality robusta coffee (Coffea canephora). After reunification, Vietnam emphasized coffee cultivation, and by 1999 surpassed Colombia to become the world’s second largest producer. Meanwhile, many other countries became significant growers and exporters. Ethiopia, coffee’s homeland, now ranks in the sixth position, following Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Indonesia, and Honduras.

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Coffee World Vs Tea World: Mapping the Consumption of Hot, Caffeinated Drinks Read More »

Mapping Recent War Fatalities and the Persistence of Current Armed Conflicts

Article-Grid, Insurgencies, World /

As noted in the previous GeoCurrent post, the civil war in Burma/Myanmar is one of the bloodiest conflicts in the world today. According to a comprehensive Wikipedia table, its death toll thus far in 2023 is 10,790, the fourth highest in the world. It follows only the Ukraine-Russia war (83,637-100,000+), the war in Sudan (11,501), and the multifaceted insurgency in the Maghreb/Sahel (10,868). Given the rapidly mounting number of fatalities in the current war between Israel and Hamas, however, the rankings for 2023 will probably have to be revised. In any event, in 2022 Burma had the third highest death count if one uses the upper range of estimates found in the table (20,206, as opposed to 109,600+ in Ethiopia and 100,000+ in Ukraine).

Burma’s civil war is also extraordinarily long-lasting, dating from 1948. The only on-going wars listed by the Wikipedia as having started earlier are the Kurdish insurgency in Iran (1918), the “Jamaican political conflict” (1943), and the insurgency in Kashmir (1947). The article also lists the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Baloch insurgency (in Pakistan and Iran) as having begun in the same year as Burma’s civil war, 1948. As of October 6, 2023 – when this post was initially written – none of these other armed conflicts had been nearly as deadly over the previous 10 months as that of Burma. On October 6, the Wikipedia table provided the following 2023 death tolls for these persistent conflicts: Kurdish insurgency in Iran, 147; Jamaican political conflict, 295; insurgency in Kashmir, 433; Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 287; and Baloch insurgency, 500. As of today, however, it gives the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a fatality count of 1,827. All told, if one combines recent death tolls and conflict duration, Burma’s civil war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seem to be the most serious conflicts in the world today.

The Wikipedia article under consideration includes a serviceable map of the “number of combat-related deaths in current or past year” (posted below). It might seem odd to place Mexico in the highest category (more than 10,000 fatalities), but the source includes “drug wars,” an intriguing but questionable move. As the map shows, wars today are concentrated in northern and central Africa, the Middle East, southern Asia, northern South America, Mexico, and Ukraine & Russia. In contrast, East Asia, Central Asia, Europe, southern Africa, southern South America, northern North America, and Oceania (Australia and the Pacific) are nearly free of armed conflicts.

This map, however, as well as the table that was used to generate it, must be regarded as highly approximate. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to consistently and accurately tabulate deaths in armed conflicts. Although the Wikipedia article does an admirable job, it misses some deadly conflicts. It does not list Papua New Guinea, for example, as having experienced any combat-related fatalities over the past two years. In actuality, so-called tribal wars in New Guinea’s highlands are ubiquitous. According to a recent article in The Guardian, more than 150 people died in clashes in one province (Enga) in August 2023 alone.

To help visualize the severity and persistence of current armed conflicts, I made several maps based on the same data found in the Wikipedia article. The first map below is probably the most effective. Rather than shoehorning the data into discrete country-based categories, I placed size-graded stars indicating the 2022 fatality count on the actual location of each conflict, to the extent that that is possible. But it often isn’t, as in the case of the Islamist insurgency in the Maghreb/Sahel, which is listed as occurring in 15 separate countries. At any rate, this map seems more effective at revealing the “clustering” of current conflict than the Wikipedia’s map (posted above). If drug wars are excluded, deadly conflicts in 2022 were concentrated in the “Greater Horn of Africa” (including Yemen), Burma and adjacent parts of South Asia, the northern Middle East proper, central Africa, Nigeria and environs, Afghanistan & Pakistan, and Ukraine.

The map of the duration of current armed conflicts, based on the data in the same Wikipedia table, depicts southern Asia as the area with the most persistent conflicts, followed by Central Africa. The final map shows total fatalities by country in 2021. Whether these maps do a better job of conveying the spatial patterns found in the Wikipedia table than the Wikipedia’s own map is for the reader to decide.

Mapping Recent War Fatalities and the Persistence of Current Armed Conflicts Read More »

GeoCurrents Outline Maps and Outline-Map Generator

Article-Grid, Cartography, World /

I have often been frustrated when looking for outline political maps to use in teaching and blogging. It is easy enough to find serviceable outline maps of continents and of conventional world regions (such as the Middle East). It is difficult if not impossible, however, to find them for areas of the world that span continental and world-regional boundaries. As a result, I decided to make my own high-resolution world outline map that can be used to generate outline maps centered on any part of the world. I have spent much of the last month working on this project, and I am now ready to begin sharing the fruits of my labor with the public. This post introduces this project. (Note that the maps of Africa in the previous GeoCurrents posted were all made in this manner.)

The generator map used to make the outline map posted below was done in Keynote, the Apple version of PowerPoint. To make it, I traced out every country, major dependency, and sizable island, generating shapes that can be clicked on and manipulated in different ways. Later this week I will make the Keynote file, as well as a PowerPoint version of it, available for download on this website. Before doing so, however, I want to explain how this map can be used to make outline maps for any part of the world. This post covers the simplest level.

To make the outline map posted above from the underlying generator map, I simply deleted the CIA base map, filled the shapes with color (white), copied the shapes, and then inserted them on a light-blue truncated oval. The map of the islands of Southeast Asia posted below was made simply by taking a screen shot of a segment of the map posted above, enlarging it, and then putting a frame around it. As can be seen, the scale of resolution on the resulting Southeast Asia outline map is serviceable but far from ideal. A much sharper image can be made by using the generator map itself. I have demonstrated the scale of resolution available here with the second map below, showing Indonesia and environs. Making the latter map was a little more complicated, in part because each island and country outlines in the generator map had to be clicked on and selected separately.  All of this will be explained in a later post.

I have also made separate Keynote slides with labels for all countries, larger dependencies, and seas and oceans, all of which are all situated in their proper positions. One can thus simply copy the information from one of these label-slides and then insert it on the unlabeled outline map to make an outline map with labels. Using the label slide in the Keynote and PowerPoint files (to be released later), one can easily change the size, font, color, or position of any of these labels. To make a labeled regional map, one can simply selects the appropriate labels and insert them on a segment of the world outline map. Note that higher-resolution map of insular Southeast Asia with labels for seas with the generator map itself; this will be demonstrated in a later post.

 

 

As the generator map is based on the CIA world political map, it shows the political vision of the U.S. State Department rather than that of the United Nations; Kosovo is thus depicted as a separate country rather than as a region of Serbia, the Golan Heights is depicted as part of Israel rather than of Syria, and Western Sahara is shown as part of Morocco rather than as a political entity in its own right. I have, however, placed dash lines to show the division between Morocco and Western Sahara and to show the areas of Kashmir that are claimed but not controlled by India. All U.S.-recognized sovereign states are shown (I think!) except Monaco and the Vatican City; oceanic countries (such as Tulavu) that are too small to trace out are depicted with small stars. The Palestinian Territories, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, are outlined but labeled in italics (as “PT”) to indicate that they do not constitute a sovereign state according to The U.S. State Department. For the same reason, Taiwan is also labeled in italics.

I continue to find small errors and slightly misplaced boundaries on the original generator map, and as a result I am continually refining it. But I have reached a point where I think that the map is good enough for public release. If anybody finds any errors or infelicities on this map, please let me know!

I will also be constructing new sets of label overlays for the generator map, including ones of dependencies, capital cities, and large cities. These overlays will be released as they are completed. I am also making similar regional generator maps based on physical maps that show terrain. I find making such maps useful for teaching, as I can highlight the boundaries of a given country and then talk about the physical characteristics of it that are apparent in the base map. The first of these physical-regional generator maps should be available for release within a few weeks.

GeoCurrents Outline Maps and Outline-Map Generator Read More »

The World’s Three Great Archipelagic Realms, and the Difficulties in Determining What Counts as an Island

Article-Grid, Physical Geography, World /

When lecturing on early modern history to Stanford students the other day, I remarked that there is nothing on the earth like insular Southeast Asia, with its many thousands of islands ranging in size from huge to tiny. In terms of archipelagic scope, only the Caribbean can compare, I noted, although its islands are much smaller and many fewer in number. And Southeast Asia’s island realm becomes much larger still if one were to include the nearby island clusters of Melanesia (the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands).

That evening, however, I realized that there is another great archipelagic realm, that of the Canadian Arctic and Greenland. I tend to neglect this region largely because its population is so small. Greenland, almost all of which is ice covered, has only some 56,000 inhabitants, while the many islands of the Canadian Arctic counts only around 23,000. But as can be seen in the table of large islands posted below, insular Southeast Asia and the Arctic Archipelago are of comparable scope, whereas the Caribbean is distinctly smaller.

If one is concerned, however, only with the sheer number of islands, another archipelago arguably occupies the top ranking. These are the islands of southwestern Finland, sometimes called the Turku Archipelago, whose scenic specks of land are scattered across a relatively small span of water called the Archipelago Sea. As noted in the Wikipedia article on this area:

The Archipelago Sea is a part of the Baltic Sea between the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, and the Sea of Åland, within Finnish territorial waters. By some definitions it contains the largest archipelago in the world by the number of islands, although many of the islands are very small and tightly clustered. … The total surface area is 8,300 square kilometres (3,205 square miles), of which 2,000 square kilometres (772 square miles) is land. … The number of the larger islands of over 1 square kilometre (0.4 sq mi) within the Archipelago Sea is 257, whilst the number of smaller isles of over 0.5 hectares (1.2 acres) is about 17,700. If the number of smallest uninhabitable rocks and skerries is accounted, 50,000 is probably a good estimate. In comparison, the number of islands in the Canadian Arctic archipelago is 36,563. Indonesia has 17,508 islands, according to the Indonesian Naval Hydro-Oceanographic Office. The Philippines has 7,107 islands.

 

Finland’s archipelago does not look particularly impressive on most maps, owing to the tiny size of most of its islands. But at the level of resolution increases, more and more islands appear almost everywhere one looks. I have illustrated this point with several Google Maps excerpts, posted below.

As the Wikipedia article on the Archipelago Sea indicates, it is difficult to determine the total number of islands in any body of water, as it depends on the size limit used to differentiate an island from a mere rock or other exiguous area of (generally) dry land. This can be a politically charged matter, as the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea grants every country a 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone around all its islands, but not around all its rocks.

Such definitional complexities can also give rise to some odd headlines. Just this week, several news agencies announced that Japan had “discovered” some 7,000 new islands in its own waters. But this was much less a matter of discovery than a definitional change coupled with precision mapping. As explained by Scripps News:

The country recounted the number of islands in its territory for the first time in nearly four decades, and found it has over 7,000 more than initially believed. Using digital mapping, the Geopolitical Information Authority of Japan determined it had a total of 14,125 islands. That’s 7,273 more than Japan’s Coat Guard counted in 1987. The definition of “island” is based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea, but there isn’t an international agreement on how nations count their islands. Overall, Japan detected more than 120,000 different pieces of land, but only considered the ones that had a circumference over one-tenth of a kilometer — about 328 feet.

By this measure, Japan has more islands than the Philippines. But if the Philippines where to reexamine its own island endowment, I imagine that it could come up with a higher number.

The World’s Three Great Archipelagic Realms, and the Difficulties in Determining What Counts as an Island Read More »

Problems Faced by Countries Directly Rooted in Conquest Empires

Article-Grid, Geopolitics, Historical Geography, Myth of the Nation-State, World /

Several recent GeoCurrents posts have remarked on Nepal’s relatively low social and economic indicators, especially when compared with other environmentally and culturally similar regions in the southern Himalayas. Explaining why this is the case, however, has not been attempted. Nepal’s chaotic political environment and recent history of conflict no doubt play a major role. But could a deeper reason be lodged in the fact that the modern state of Nepal is directly rooted in the early-modern conquest empire of the Gorkhas? In such an empire, one group of people conquers and imposes its will on many other groups, creating profound resentment. Turning such a polity into a well-functioning nation-state, and especially a democratic one, can be a challenge.

To assess this thesis, it is useful to look at other modern countries similarly founded on relatively recent conquest empires. Although many countries could potentially be placed in such a category, I have limited it to eight states, including Nepal (see the map below). Each will be briefly examined here.

Ethiopia, in its currently geographical bounds, emerged in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the rapid conquests of the Kingdom of Abyssinia, or Ethiopian Empire, dominated by the Christian Amhara people. Although most of Africa was colonized by Europeans, quite a few of its peoples were subjugated by this indigenous empire. Not surprisingly, religiously and linguistically diverse Ethiopia continues to experience pronounced ethnic tensions, and has never successfully transitioned into a fully national state.

Saudi Arabia is a more recently created conquest state, emerging in the early 1900s. In 1902, the domain of the Saud family was limited to a small area near the middle of the Arabian Peninsula. Through a spectacular series of conquests over the next several decades, Ibn Saud had carved an extensive state that became known as Saudi Arabia. Although one could argue that Saudi Arabia was never an empire because its creation involved the conquest of other Arabic-speaking Muslim groups, the actual situation was more complicated. The austere Wahhabi sect that was, and still is, closely linked to the Saudi dynasty, was foreign to most of what is now Saudi Arabia. Especially to Twelver Shi’ites of the Gulf region, Saudi Arabia can still seem like an empire. But it is also true that generous social spending and rapid economic development have more generally transformed Saudi Arabia into a successful nation-state.

Afghanistan is directly rooted in the Durrani Empire, carved out by Ahmad Shah Durrani in the mid 1700s. A Pashtun project, the Durrani Empire forcefully brought many members of other ethnic groups, with different languages and cultures, under its rule. In the twentieth century, Afghanistan sought to transform itself into a national state in several different incarnations, with middling success. But Afghanistan’s continuing tensions and turmoil have some linkages with its imperial formation.

Modern Burma/Myanmar is firmly rooted in the Burmese Konbaung Empire and Dynasty (1752 to 1885). The first Konbaung ruler crushed the wealthy and sophisticated Kingdom of Pegu in southern Burma and subsequently almost wiped its Mon people off the map. Konbaung rulers went on the conquer the Shan states, Arakan, Manipur, and even Assam, severely threatening the British East India Company in Calcutta. Three Anglo-Burmese war followed, eventually reducing the entire empire to British imperial rule. But when Burma was reborn as an independent state in 1948, its leaders sought to reestablish ethnic Burman domination over non-Burman peoples, following Aung San’s pre-war slogan “our race, our language, our religion.” Ethnic rebellions immediately proliferated and continue to this day. Burma has never been able to turn itself into a solid nation state.

Iran has deeper and more complicated roots, but it was essentially formed by the Safavid Dynasty, which conquered the region that is now Iran, and more, in the early sixteenth century. The religiously driven Safavids turned Iran a Twelver Shi’ite country; today it is a Twelver Shi’ite theocracy. The Safavid state was a joint project of Turkic military power and Persian cultural and administrative capability, the combination of which continued to form the backbone of the Iranian state long after the Safavid Dynasty fell from power in 1736. Iran eventually turned itself into a relatively successful national state, but to its mostly Sunni Kurds and Balochs, and to many Iranian Arabs as well, it can still seem like a Persian empire.

Russian arguably became an empire in 1552, when Ivan IV (“the Terrible”) conquered the important Muslim state of Kazan, turning Russia into a multi-confessional, multilinguistic polity. Subsequent expansion brought many other non-Russian peoples under its imperial rule. Although the Bolsheviks rejected the very idea of empire, in many ways the Soviet Union that they created continued to function as an imperial state – as does Russia to this day. Ethnic conflicts, however, are not a major problem today. Crucial factors here include the fact that ethnic Russian form a solid majority (70 to 80 percent of the total population) and the effectiveness of the Kremlin’s political suppression.

China is the most complicated case. Its civilizational roots extend back for millennia, longer even than those of Iran. But the geographical expression of China today stems from the conquests of the Qing Dynasty and Empire in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Taiwan, viewed by Beijing today as an intrinsic part of its territorial domain, had never previously been under Chinese rule. The huge regions of Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet, and Manchuria all became firmly part of China owing to the power of the Qing. Ironically, the Qing were not themselves an ethnic Chinese but rather Manchus; their success in subjugating the vastly more numerous Han Chinese people resulted in their own demographic swamping and virtual disappearance as a people. Today, China forms a secure national state with relatively minor ethnic conflicts. Such stability stems from the demographic predominance of the Han people (92 percent of the population) and to the country’s rapid economic ascent. But to Uighurs, Tibetans, Mongols, and others, China can still feel like an imperial state.

Many other countries, including the United States, have some imperial roots and are treated as empires by some writers. But for the eight countries mapped above, imperial roots are pronounced. It is probably not coincidental that none of them has a successful history of democratic governance.

Problems Faced by Countries Directly Rooted in Conquest Empires Read More »

Geographical Illiteracy and the U.S. Foreign Policy Establishment

Article-Grid, Editorial, Geopolitics, World /

As I have tried to show over the course of many years of writing and teaching, the standard world political map is a misleading and seductive document, depicting global political organization as far more straightforward than it actually is. But the real problem is far more basic: as simplistic as the world map is, students are seldom asked to learn anything about it. The pedagogical consensus seems to be that world geography is unworthy of focused instruction. All that most students learn is that the globe is divided into fundamental units called either countries or nation-states, few of which have much significance. Beyond that, geographical knowledge is considered worthwhile mostly for game shows or trivia nights at local pubs. The result is not merely widespread gaps in public knowledge but rather pervasive geographical illiteracy that has damaging real-world consequences

The evidence of ubiquitous geo-illiteracy in the United States is overwhelming, attested by multiple studies. Suffice it here to provide one telling example. In 2014, just after Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, a Washington Post survey found that only 16 percent of the 2,066 Americans queried could locate Ukraine on a world map.[1]Several dozen respondents placed it in Greenland, around 40 favored Canada, and 15 opted for some part of the United States. The median response was off by about 1,800 miles. Many could not even tell the difference between land and water, putting Ukraine somewhere at sea. Most distressing, the Post discovered in 2014 that the “the less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want the U.S. to intervene.” As is so often the case, ignorance and arrogance go together.

The extent of our collective geo-witlessness is well understood. Periodic news articles demonstrating its depth gather brief notice and elicit some cringing mirth, yet they never generate any momentum for educational reform. In academia, merely drawing attention to the problem can bring retribution. David Helgren, an assistant professor at the University of Miami, lost his job and was threatened with a lawsuit after he revealed the geographical ignorance of his students, thereby embarrassing school officials.[2] For some educators, the problem is evidently not geographical illiteracy but rather regarding geographical illiteracy a problem worth acknowledging.

Those engaged in high-level international pursuits are of course professionally obligated to learn something about how the world is put together. Many know the political map quite well, and more than a few delve below its surface to discover how power actually plays out on the ground. But to the extent that they gain such knowledge, it is through their own efforts, guided by their personal appreciation of what is important. Unfortunately, not everyone in such positions has such an understanding. As a result, geographical illiteracy extends into the uppermost levels of governmental service.

The dearth of knowledge at the pinnacle of America power is abundantly evident in recent presidential pronouncements. George W. Bush’s geopolitical miscues were legendary, ranging from confusing Slovenia with Slovakia to a gobsmacking characterization of Africa as a nation.[3] Donald Trump’s cluelessness is so extensive that it took a sizable portion of a recent book to document it. As Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig recount in A Very Stable Genius,[4] Trump flabbergasted Indian prime minister Narendra Modi by dismissively telling him that “It’s not like you’ve got China on your border.” (The India-China border stretches over two thousand miles.) Barack Obama’s geographical errors merited an entire article, memorably entitled (with a hat-tip to Sam Cooke) “Don’t Know Much About Geography.”[5] I could go on, but the point has been made.

It might be objected that the global awareness of any American president is of no great importance, as staffers can be expected to carry the weight. But presidential gaffes are deeply embarrassing and can have damaging diplomatic consequences. According to one State Department aide, “the Indians took a step back” in their relations with the United States after Trump denied the existence of their border with China.[6] More to the point, even State Department officials cannot be assumed to have mastered the map, and as a result they sometimes lead their superiors astray. As telling instance comes from the Nixon administration. The president had been prepared for a meeting with the prime minister of Mauretania in northwestern Africa but spoke instead with the leader of Mauritius, located in the Indian Ocean. As Ken Jennings recounts:[7]

President Nixon led off the discussion by suggesting that the Prime Minister of a valued American ally restore diplomatic relations with the United States! That way, he said, he could offer American expertise in dry farming. The flummoxed Mauritian, hailing as he did from a lush jungle nation, had little interest in desert farming, so he tried to change the subject, asking Nixon about a space tracking station that the United States operated in his country. The bewildered Nixon scrawled something down on a yellow legal pad and handed it to [Henry] Kissinger. The note read, “Why the hell do we have a space tracking station in a country with which we don’t have diplomatic relations?”

It is not as if State Department officials are poorly educated. Almost all are graduates of fine universities, and many have been through demanding post-graduate programs in International Relations (IR), International Policy, or related fields. The coursework in these programs is generally multidisciplinary but anchored in political science and economics. Valuable knowledge of international issues and institutions is acquired, as are powerful analytical skills. Graduates of the top-tier IR programs tend to be highly intelligent, hard-working, and adept at networking. Most aim high in the career choices, and, unsurprisingly, many go far.

But for all of that, major knowledge gaps go unaddressed. Although political history is a component of most IR programs, it is seldom required and never emphasized, whereas political geography hardly figures at all. Instead, the received map and model of the world provide the essential framework, conveying a clear-cut geopolitical system that can be taken as given and then by-passed. The system’s knotted history is typically reduced to a few key events, most notably the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Instruction in the actual architecture of political power across the world and its historical development is sidelined if not ignored.

What is reasonably required in most International Relations programs is a deep dive into IR theory. Classes on this topic seek to provide an understanding of how polities interact, usually by contrasting the views of several distinct schools of thought. Simplifying greatly, here one finds “realism,” which emphasizes competition among states, vying against softer-edged “liberalism,” which foregrounds institutional arrangements and non-state actors, as well as “constructivism,” which puts more stress on ideas, values, and cultural conditions. Adherents of critical IR theory, in contrast, critique both the geopolitical status quo and the above-mentioned modes of analyzing it, generally from a leftist perspective. These schools, along with several others, provide useful perspectives and need to be tackled by anyone seeking a deep understanding of the international arena.[8]

But insightful though they may be, none of these schools of thought has been able to generate accurate predictions or even falsifiable explanations of geopolitical change, and thus fail to reach scientific standing. Such theories also fall short because they tend to reflect the political hopes and leanings of those who advocate them. More important, none acknowledges the need for comprehensive global knowledge.

Most top-tier programs in international relations and related fields also require deep grounding in quantitative methods, usually through extensive coursework in economics and statistics. At Stanford University, the Ford Dorsey Master’s program in International Policy – “designed to produce leaders”[9] – stresses the quantitatively rigorous nature of its core curriculum.[10] Its mandatory methodologies, such as “logit and problt regression analysis,”[11] are important for doctoral work in some social-science fields and can yield significant findings. But it is questionable whether they should be required for foreign-policy experts. Professionals in the field seldom use them, and their mastery confers few practical advantages. Supporters sometimes claim that advanced statistics classes must be mandatory so that policy makers can fully understand cutting-edge articles in economics and political science journals that might influence their decisions.[12] I have seen little evidence, however, of that actually happening.

World history and geography, on the other hand, are essentially bypassed in this prestigious program. No coursework in political history is required, and no classes on political geography are offered. When one weights the curriculum’s requirements against its omissions, it is difficult to avoid seeing an insinuation that knowledge of the world is essentially extraneous, whereas complex mathematics holds the key for understanding and effective action. These are dubious ideas, especially when taken together.

History and geography are slighted in IR circles in part because they are regarded as simple subjects that students can easily pick up on their own. This assertion is far from true. For almost all students, prolonged instruction is necessary. And if a few self-motivated and intellectually gifted learners can acquire adequate geo-historical comprehension through their own efforts, the same is true of IR theory, economics, and even advanced statistics.

What the completion of required classes in advanced statistics and econometrics do is signal the quantitative abilities and diligence of those who have mastered them. Anyone who can get through the necessary mathematics must be smart and hardworking, important qualities for any high-level position. But as the iconoclastic economist Bryan Caplan more generally argues,[13] university coursework is an inefficient means of confirming such attributes, much less of ensuring competence on the job. Unfortunately, similarly inefficient means of selecting high-level civil servants have been common in global comparative terms. As David Graeber and David Wengrow note, “qualifications to enter bureaucracies are typically based on some form of knowledge that has virtually nothing to do with actual administration. It’s only important because it is obscure.”[14] This may not be the best way to educate our leaders.

While intelligence and assiduousness may be necessary traits for foreign-policy experts, they are not sufficient. Knowledge of the world is also essential. Yet for some reason it seldom considered important. To be sure, the Foreign Service Officer Test, employed to winnow candidates for diplomatic employment, formerly emphasized general and global knowledge. In 2006, however, most of the pertinent material was eliminated. The New York Times celebrated the change by noting that one no longer needs to be good at “Trivial Pursuits” to pursue a diplomatic career.[15] When knowledge of the world is casually dismissed by America’s “newspaper of record” as mere trivia, it is hardly surprising that global ignorance has become the national norm.

None of this is to suggest that the accumulation of empirical knowledge is of a higher intellectual order than theorization, or that advanced statistical techniques are not necessary in many fields of inquiry. But when it comes to multifaceted issues of human history and social organization, productive theory must rest a massive and constantly changing empirical foundation. These domains are too involved to be pared down to any simple, reductive models, such the one that is reflected in the standard political map of the world. Doing so generates a conceptual straightjacket, often leading to unrealistic expectations and wildly off-target predictions.

[1] “The less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want U.S. to intervene,” by Kyle Dropp, Joshua D. Kertzer, and Thomas Zeitzoff. Washington Post, April 7, 2014. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/07/the-less-americans-know-about-ukraines-location-the-more-they-want-u-s-to-intervene/

[2] Cited in Jennings, Ken. Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks.

  1. Scribner.

[3] “The Case of Bush II,” by Ira Kay. Counterpunch. November 2, 2004. https://www.counterpunch.org/2004/11/02/the-case-of-bush-ii/

[4] Rucker, Philip, and Carol Leonnig. A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America. 2020. Penguin Press.

2021

[5] “Don’t Know Much About Geography,” By Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, August 15, 2013. https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/08/dont-know-much-about-geography-victor-davis-hanson/

[6] Rucker and Leonnig, 2020.

[7] Jennings 2012, p. 37.

[8] As Jack Snyder aptly summarizes, “The study of international relations is supposed to tell us how the world works. It’s a tall order, and even the best theories fall short. But they can puncture illusions. … Even in a radically changing world, the classic theories have a lot to say. “One World, Rival Theories” by Jack Snyder. Foreign Policy, October 26, 2009. https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/26/one-world-rival-theories/

[9] This is from the program’s website: https://fsi.stanford.edu/masters-degree/content/ips-home

[10] This is from the description of the program in the Stanford University Bulletin: https://bulletin.stanford.edu/departments/INTLPOLICY/overview#text

[11] Its core sequence, “Research Methods and Policy Applications I and II” considers the “statistical formulation and practical applications of linear regression analysis, the assumptions of OLS models, and how to check and address violations of these assumptions,” while also looking at “models for dichotomous and categorical dependent variables including logit and problt regression.” From the Stanford Bulletin “Explore Courses” website: https://explorecourses.stanford.edu/search?view=catalog&filter-coursestatus-Active=on&page=0&catalog=&academicYear=&q=INTLPOL+301b&collapse=

[12] I often heard this argument while serving as interim director of Stanford’s program in International Policy Studies in the early 2000s

[13] Caplan, Bryan. The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money. 2019. Princeton University Press. Caplan’s radical arguments entail a significant amount of hyperbole, but nonetheless must be taken seriously.

[14] Graeber, David, and David Wengrow. The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. 2021. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Page 474..

[15] “Rarely Win at Trivial Pursuit? An Embassy Door Opens,” by Tamar Lewis. New York Times, December 17, 2006. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/weekinreview/17lewin.html

 

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Most Moravians Live In Tanzania: The Global Spread of the Moravian and Mennonite Faiths

Article-Grid, Cultural Geography, Religion, World /

The Moravian Church has a good claim to being the oldest Protestant denomination, tracing its origin back to the Bohemian Reformation of the early 15th century, closely associated with Jan Huss. “Hussites” were persecuted at the time and eventually defeated in battle, and during the Counter-Reformation, Bohemia and Moravia were brought back into the Roman Catholic fold. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia today, however, some 100,000 to 180,000 people belong to the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, which follows the traditions of the Bohemian Reformation, although it did not break away (again) from the Roman Catholic Church until after World War I. The much larger Moravian Church, with an estimated 750,000 adherents, traces its history more directly to the Bohemian reformers of the early 1400s. In 1722, an underground group of believers, the Bohemian Brethren or “Hidden Seed,” who had been living in northern Moravia in what is now the Czech Republic, accepted an invitation to resettle in upper Saxony, a Protestant stronghold. As they began to proselytize, their sect expanded. One of their acts was to set up a watch of 24-hour-a-day prayer, which supposedly lasted for 100 years.

 

At roughly the same time as their relocation to Saxony, the Moravians began to send missionaries abroad, first to Scandinavia and then to Greenland, the Caribbean, and indigenous communities in North America. Some of their early converts were eventually transferred to the Lutheran or Presbyterian churches, but elsewhere the Moravian Church established a permanent presence. In 1847 missionary activities commenced among the Miskitu Indians of eastern Nicaragua, who at the time maintained their own kingdom in alliance with Great Britain. Most Miskitus today adhere to the faith, as do members of the neighboring Sumu and Rana indigenous groups. Some 83,000 people in Nicaragua currently belong to the Moravian Church.

Moravian Church GeographyMoravian proselytizers came later to Tanzania, establishing their first mission in 1891. They were quite successful; current figures put the Moravian population in the country at 500,000 (out of a global total of approximately 750,00). I was not able to find the data that would have allowed me to make a world map of Moravian membership, but the Wikipedia chart of the church’s organization, posted here, gives a good indication of the centrality of Tanzania in the faith today.

 

 

The Mennonite Faith

The Mennonite Christian tradition traces its origins to the so-called Radical Reformation of the Anabaptists in 16th-Century Europe. Pacifistic beliefs led to resistance against military conscription, which in turn led to persecution and hence migration. A particularly large resettlement movement to the Americas occurred after the Russian Revolution, as Mennonites were targeted by Bolsheviks as “kulaks,” or well-to-do peasants. By the mid 20th century, most Mennonites lived in the Western Hemisphere. Over time, numerous schisms occurred, resulting in a profusion of sects. Many Mennonite groups remain somewhat separated from societies in which they live, and some of them resist various forms of modern technology. As a whole, however, the Mennonite tradition is diverse and decentralized. As noted in the Wikipedia:

For the most part, there is a host of independent Mennonite churches along with a myriad of separate conferences with no particular responsibility to any other group. Independent churches can contain as few as fifty members or as many as 20,000 members. Similar size differences occur among separate conferences. Worship, church discipline and lifestyles vary widely between progressive, moderate, conservative, Old Order and orthodox Mennonites in a vast panoply of distinct, independent, and widely dispersed classifications. For these reasons, no single group of Mennonites anywhere can credibly claim to represent, speak for, or lead all Mennonites worldwide.

Despite this centralization, a number of Mennonite groups have joined together to form the Mennonite World Conference, described by the Wikipedia as “a voluntary community of faith whose decisions are not binding on member churches.” Out of a total global Mennonite population of some 1.7 to 2.1 million, approximately 400,000 belong to churches affiliated with the Mennonite World Conference.

Mennonite World MapAccording to some sources, the largest affiliate of the Mennonite World Conference—and the largest single Mennonite organization—is the Meserete Kristos Church of Ethiopia, which counts “255,462 baptized members and a worship community of over 471,070 persons as of November 2014.” This particular denomination has grown explosively in recent decades; as a result, a current map of global Mennonite membership would depict Ethiopia in a darker shade of blue than that found on the map that I have posted here, derived from 2003 data. As noted in the Wikipedia:

The [Ethiopian Mennonite] church has over 756 congregations and 875 church planting centers scattered in all 18 Administrative Regions of Ethiopia. The denomination’s growth rate in the last decade stands at 37%. … Meserete Kristos grew out of the work of Ethiopian Mennonite Missions in the 1950s. Mennonite missions set up hospitals and schools, eventually starting a church as a result of demand. Growth in early years was rather slow, until 1974, when the Derg took power. At the time, 5,000 Meserete Kristos members went into hiding. Small groups started, and meetings and baptisms were held at night. During this time many Mulu Wongel [an evangelical Pentecostal group] members joined the church, and growth was astronomical.

Mennonites in Congo MapEthiopia is by no means the only African country with a substantial Mennonite presence. In DR Congo, the faith dates back to 1912, when Mennonite missionaries arrived in the West Kasai region. The Mennonite faith seems to have expanded dramatically in the mid and late 1900s. As explained in the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online:

Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) first became involved in Congo in the 1950s, when a few North American conscientious objectors were sent as alternative service volunteers. In the aftermath of political independence (1960), MCC teamed with the Congo Protestant Council to form the Congo Protestant Relief Association (CPRA), which became a channel for relief supplies for various areas where local populations were displaced by political unrest. Known as ZPRA, this cooperative project with Zaire (Congo) mission and church communities continues.

It was also in the 1960s that Congo became one of the areas selected by MCC administrators for service for Pax and Teachers Abroad Program (TAP) personnel. During that decade a steady stream of young people came to Congo, where they served in a wide variety of roles with Mennonite and other missions. MCC eventually moved beyond construction sites and schoolrooms to cooperative efforts with Congo Mennonite churches in various rural development projects.

By the 1980s, MCC collaborated with the three Zaire (Congo) churches in helping to sponsor seminars for pastors on a variety of topics including issues of peace, justice, and development. French-speaking Mennonites from Europe and North America were resource people for these much appreciated sessions.

Mennonites in India mapMennonite missionaries have also been active in India, realizing a degree of success in Hindu-majority regions in which most Christian proselytizing efforts have failed. In recent years, tensions have flared in some of these areas. In 2008, Mennonite and other Christian communities in the Indian state of Odisha (then spelled Orissa) were attacked by Hindu extremists, forcing some 30,000 to 70,000 people to flee their homes. Relations between Mennonites and their Hindu neighbors have more often been relatively good. Mohandas Gandhi reportedly held the pacifistic Mennonite tradition in high repute, writing in 1947 to a Mennonite missionary, “Why worry? I am in the same boat with you.”

The Mennonite community today is roughly divided between “Euro-Mennonites” in Europe and the Americas and Mennonite converts in Africa and Asia. In Latin America, Mennonites are sometimes criticized for their high birth rates and agricultural expansion. As a writer with The Guardian argued in 2010:

What is it with Mennonites? Two weeks ago I wrote a piece from Paraguay on how the vast dry forest known as the Gran Chaco was being felled at an alarming rate mainly by people from this Christian fundamentalist sect.

Having fled from persecution in eastern Europe 80 years ago, they went to one of the most inhospitable places on earth and by the sweat of their brow – and a lot of help from the indigenous peoples on whom they depended – they have survived in the wilderness. But now, it seems they have moved from Biblical exhortations for stewardship of the Earth to outright exploitation and dominion. They have bought up nearly 2m hectares, worth, these days, in the region of $600m (£382m), made themselves fabulously wealthy from a $100m-a-year meat and dairy business, and are now in danger of totally destroying an unique ecosystem, indigenous peoples and all.

The Mennonite response was rather measured. As reported in the Mennonite Creation Care Network:

MCCN exists to support the Church in its green discipleship. We encourage collaboration and networking, and our web site is designed to showcase positive change taking place among Mennonite institutions and families. We typically post hopeful stories about people putting up solar panels, biking to work and planning inspiring events.

On October 4, an article that did not quite fit our categories appeared in The Guardian, a major British newspaper. “Chaco deforestation by Christian sect puts Paraguayan land under threat,” the headline read. The author, John Vidal, is the paper’s environmental editor.

Vidal asserts that Mennonite farmers in the Chaco are “expanding aggressively,” using a style of farming “totally unsuited to the fragile soils of the Chaco” and causing desertification and erosion in one of the world’s most fragile and diverse environments. Within days, a number of other environmental sites had picked up the story. A follow-up, detailing some responses from Paraguay appeared in The Guardian October 22.

The Paraguayan article prompted vigorous discussion among MCCN’s Creation Care Council and raised a number of issues for us at MCCN. Among them:

  • If we are committed to fostering healthy communication around environmental topics in a world given to polarization, how do we handle news that isn’t good?

  • Is it appropriate for a North American organization to report on environmental problems in other countries when most of us know little or nothing about the context?

  • How can we model thoughtful and reflective approaches to conflict?

 

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The Global Spread of Heterodox Christianity

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Other Religion Map 1As noted in an earlier post, I regard Scolbert08’s map of world religions as a cartographic masterpiece. I do, however, have some qualms about the categories that it employs. I am particularly dissatisfied with the “other” grouping, which is composed, according to the key, of indigenous/animist Other Religion Map 2faiths, non-Trinitarian Christianity, and Sikhism. These religions, or groups of religions, hardly belong together. The map’s general classification scheme, moreover, reserves three and a third of its nine categories of faith for Christianity, which also hardly seems fair.

As far as the map itself is concerned, the non-Trinitarian Christian component of the “other” category is, as far as I can tell, limited to Mormonism (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), which encompasses the majority (or plurality) of the population of a sizable portion of the western United States (centered on the state of Utah) as well as that of a few Tongan islands in the Pacific. But although Mormonism is the world’s largest non-Trinitarian Christian List of Non-Trinitarian Christian Sectssect, most non-Trinitarian Christians are not Mormons, as can be seen in the Wikipedia breakdown posted to the left. Only Mormonism shows up on the map—again, as far as I can tell—because only it is spatially concentrated enough to generate local majorities or pluralities.

Separating non-Trinitarian from Trinitarian Christianity does make sense from a historical perspective, as the doctrine of the Trinity has been central to the Christian tradition. In its early centuries, Christianity was convulsed by disputes about the exact nature of the Trinity, with adherents of different sects bitterly opposing each other over minor distinctions, as recounted recently in Charles Freeman’s AD 381: Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State. Such disputes, however, have long since receded away. As a result, I am not sure that the rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity by a number of modern groups makes that much difference today. The United Pentecostal Church International is non-Trinitarian, for example, but it still seems much closer to Pentecostal Trinitarianism than to other non-Trinitarian Christian denominations, such Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, or Christian Science.

Mormons World MapMormonism, to be sure, is rejected as non-Christian by many evangelical Protestants, but that has more to do with its unique cosmology than its rejection of Trinitarian orthodoxy.* Certain Trinitarian denominations, moreover, veer equally far away from Christian orthodoxy on other essential issues, and thus fit poorly into a unified “Protestant” category. Seventh-Day Adventists, for example, accept the Trinity, but they also deny the immortality of the soul, which seems to me a rather more theologically significant deviation.**

Jehovah's Witnesses World MapConsidering such issues, I think that it is fair to say that three major Christian sects—those with adherents numbering in the millions—diverge so strongly from orthodox theology that they can accurately be described as heterodox. These are as follows: Seventh-Day Adventism, with some 18 million members, Mormonism, with some 15 million members, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, with some 8 million members. Other heterodox sects, such as Christian Science, may be important but simply do not have enough members to make the list. Christian Science, for example, counts fewer than half a million adherents.

Seventh-Day Adventists World MapIntriguingly, all three of these major heterodox faiths originated in the United States but are now are highly international. To illustrate their global spread, I have constructed maps of their membership across the world. Unfortunately, some of the information used to make these maps is out-of-date, as I did not have time to track down more recent data.

The most international of these groups is Seventh-Day Adventism, which in 2004 had more adherents in Brazil than in the United States. This faith is well established across Latin America, and has many followers in both sub-Saharan Africa and the eastern half of Asia (particularly in India and the Philippines). The success of the Seventh-Day Adventist church in gaining adherents is perhaps related to its educational program. As noted in the Wikipedia:

Globally, the Adventist Church operates 7,598 schools, colleges and universities, with a total enrollment of more than 1,545,000 and a total teaching staff of approximately 80,000. It claims to operate “one of the largest church-supported educational systems in the world”. In the United States it operates the largest Protestant educational system, second overall only to that of the Roman Catholic Church. The Adventist educational program strives to be comprehensive, encompassing “mental, physical, social and above all, spiritual health” with “intellectual growth and service to humanity” as its goal.

In the United States, Seventh-Day Adventism has gained considerable attention in recent months owing to the fact that it is the faith of Ben Carson, the current front-runner in the Republican Party for the 2016 presidential contest. Although Carson polls very well among evangelical Christians, who actually form his main base of support, some Protestant pastors have expressed serious misgivings about his heterodox faith.

Religious Diversity ChartThe fact that Ben Carson is both African-American and Seventh-Day Adventist is not unusual. According to a recent Pew survey, Seventh-Day Adventism is the most racially diverse religious sect in the United States, as can be seen in the table posted to the left. It is also interesting, and rather ironic, that the more politically conservative denominations in the United States tend to be more racially diverse that the more liberal denominations. “Mainline” Protestant groups, such as the Episcopalians, Methodists, and Evangelical Lutherans, score particularly low on the racial diversity index.

In terms of racial diversity, Mormonism ranks slightly below average, and thus much lower than either Seventh-Day Adventism or Jehovah’s Witnesses. By the same token, Mormonism’s global reach is somewhat more restricted than those of the other two main heterodox faiths. Sub-Saharan Africa in particular has many fewer Mormons than Adventists or Jehovah’s Witnesses (the Pacific Islands, on the other hand, have more Mormons).

Mormonism’s efforts in Africa were formerly restricted by the fact that the church long retained racist policies, disallowing, for example, ordination into its lay priesthood for men of African background. These policies, however, were abandoned in 1978, due—according to church leaders—to a new revelation from God. Mormon missionaries are now active in a number of sub-Saharan African countries, as parodied in the Broadway musical, “The Book of Mormon.” But break-away Mormon sects do not necessarily accept the change; as noted in the Wikipedia, “Some Mormon fundamentalist sects that split from the LDS Church in the early 1900s continue to teach that the priesthood should be withheld from black people because of their cursed state, and that the LDS Church’s reversal is a sign of its apostasy.” Mormon Fundamentalists, however, count only around 20,000 members; they tend to receive more attention than such numbers would seemingly justify primarily because of their on-going practice of polygamy.

Jehovah's Witnesses Banned MapThe main spatial pattern found in these heterodox Christian denominations is their substantial membership across the Americas. The majority-Catholic countries of Latin America, along with the Philippines, all figure prominently on these maps. These three faiths have all also failed to spread in the Muslim stronghold of North Africa and the Middle East, as would be expected (most of the countries in this region ban the activities of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.) It is also notable that Seventh-Day Adventism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses have gained considerable success across much of sub-Saharan Africa. Intriguingly, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have been more successful than the others in gaining converts in Europe.

*As explained in the Wikipedia: “Mormon cosmology presents a unique view of God and the universe, and places a high importance on human agency. In Mormonism, life on earth is just a short part of an eternal existence. Mormons believe that in the beginning all people existed as spirits or “intelligences,” in the presence of God. In this state, God proposed a plan of salvation whereby they could progress and “have a privilege to advance like himself.” The spirits were free to accept or reject this plan, and a “third” of them, led by Satan rejected it. The rest accepted the plan, coming to earth and receiving bodies with an understanding that they would experience sin and suffering.”

 

** As explained in the Wikipedia, Seventh-Day Adventist beliefs include: “ Wholistic human nature (fundamental beliefs 7, 26)—Humans are an indivisible unity of body, mind, and spirit. They do not possess an immortal soul and there is no consciousness after death (commonly referred to as “soul sleep”).) Conditional immortality (fundamental belief 27)—The wicked will not suffer eternal torment in hell, but instead will be permanently destroyed.)”

 

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Innovative Wikipedia Maps of World Religion

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As mentioned in the previous post, a number of innovative world maps of religion have recently appeared on the internet. Several of these are posted at the bottom of the Wikipedia article on “Major Religious Groups” in a section labeled “Maps of self-reported adherence.” Today’s post will focus on three of the maps found here.

Christianity and Islam World MapThe first map reproduced here shows only two religions, Christianity and Islam. It does so, however, in an unusual manner, mapping not merely adherents of these two faiths but also those who are neither Muslim nor Christian (whether they follow other religions or are irreligious). Unfortunately, the map has little in the way of a key and lacks explanatory notes, but it is easy to understand how it works, at least in theory. A county that is nearly 100 percent Muslim is thus depicted in bright green, a country that is nearly 100 Christian is depicted in bright red, a country that has almost no adherents of either faith is depicted in white, and a country of mixed faith is accorded a mixed color. Countries and dependencies that are not measured are portrayed in black, as is French Guiana, which should be the same color as the rest of France.

Although the idea behind this map is powerful, I am not sure that it works out as well in practice. To begin with, the color scheme does not make intuitive sense. At first glance—to me at any rate—darker green countries such as Syria, Egypt, and especially Lebanon would appear to have a higher percentage of Muslims than lighter green countries such as Algeria and Afghanistan, but the opposite is true. Countries that are fairly evenly divided between Muslims and Christians, such as Nigeria, would logically be depicted in brown, but here Nigeria looks much more green, and hence much more Muslim than Christian. The same is true for Eritrea, which according to some sources is evenly split between the two faiths, although the Pew Research Center claims that it is actually about two-thirds Christian. Only Ethiopia looks truly brown to me, but it has a clear Christian majority according to almost all sources. Bosnia, mapped in a pale green shade looks like it is divided between Muslims and people who follow neither Christianity nor Islam, but according to most sources the country is almost half Christian.

Abrahamic and Indian Religions World MapIn the end, I commend the author for making such an innovative map, but I do think that it could benefit from some major adjustments. I am more positively inclined toward another map made by the same author, that comparing the prevalence of “Abrahamic” and “Indian” religions. Most world religions can be grouped together in such a manner, although they rarely are. The most striking feature of this map is the global prevalence of the Abrahamic faiths, with those of Indian derivation mostly confined to East, South, and Mainland Southeast Asia. Bangladesh is a striking exception to this pattern. The only “orange” countries, heavily mixed between these two traditions, are the Guyanas, Malaysia, South Korea, and Mauritius, although Fiji and Trinidad & Tobago should be placed in this category as well, while French Guiana should be mapped along with the rest of France. South Korea is appropriately depicted in a light orange, as almost half of its residents profess no religious faith.

Religions of the World MapThe final map, by Arseny Khakhalin, makes a three-fold division between Islam, Christianity, and an odd and unjustifiable category of Hinduism, Buddhism, Chinese religions, and indigenous religions. It also maps Judaism separately with an equal mixture of cyan and magenta, colors that are used map Islam and Christianity respectively. I find this maneuver confusing, as it would seem that a country evenly divided between Muslims and Christians, such as Nigeria, should be mapped in the same manner. The most striking feature of this map is its division of a number of large countries into their constituent units. This strategy reveals a number of important and interesting features, such as the prevalence of Islam in Kashmir and Xinjiang, and the unusual religious nature of Russia’s Republic of Kalmykia (which is heavily Buddhist). The small Christian states of eastern India also stand out, although I suspect that they should be mapped in a deeper shade of magenta, as Nagaland is reportedly 90 percent Baptist. It also seems that some countries (such as those of Scandinavia) and some regions (such as the provinces of Argentina) are depicted as too Christian, as they have high percentages of non-believers.  This  issue, however, concerns the data sources, not the cartography.

Several other world religions maps have recently been posted on-line that break many other countries down into their constituent units. I hope to put up a post about these maps later this week, although writing and grading mid-term examinations may force me to delay this until next week.

 

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The Pitfalls and Promises of Mapping World Religion

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I have long been dissatisfied with world religion maps, especially those that are available on the internet. To be sure, mapping religion is an inherently difficult task. Many areas contain multiple faiths, just as different places often vary tremendously in regard religiosity itself. Changes in the religious landscape, moreover, are often difficult to capture. Most of Europe, for example, is appropriately mapped as Christian when it comes to its religious heritage, but in the 21st century such a depiction is no longer completely accurate. Over much of Europe, nonbelievers now greatly outnumber believers, and in quite a few places practicing Muslims outstrip practicing Christians. Some reports go so far as to claim that in terms of actual practice, France is now more Muslim than Christian,* although this assertion is probably exaggerated.

Religious “mixture,” moreover, can characterize not just regions but also individuals. An anthropologist friend of mine once characterized the West African country of Guinea as “90 percent Muslim and 90 percent animist,” which could well be true. But animism and so-called tribal religions more generally usually get short shrift in world religion maps. The same is true for syncretic faiths such as Candomblé, which might be the dominant faith in parts of northeastern Brazil, although only around five percent of Brazilians overall report themselves to be adherents. But such numbers are themselves suspect, as it is often difficult to enumerate religious adherents. Polling and census data are partial or non-existent over much of the world, and people often fail to be forthcoming about matters of faith when asked. As a GodWeb post argues, “To put it bluntly, when asked about religious belief and practice, ordinary citizens lie. And they lie about their faith to a greater degree then they lie about their sex life, or political activity.”

World Religion Map 1Another common problem in the mapping of religions is the inconsistent division of major faiths into their constituent branches. If Christianity is divided into its Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox branches, as it often is (see the map posted to the left), then by the same token Buddhism should be broken down into its Mahayana and Theravada forms, just as Islam should be divided into its Sunni, Shia, and Ibadi branches. Making such divisions, moreover, should be done in a rigorous manner. The so-called Oriental Orthodox Christian churches, such as the World Religion Map 3Armenian Apostolic Church and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, for example, should not be mapped with the Eastern Orthodox branch, as they often are (see, for example, “World Religions Map 2006” posted here) for the simple reason that they do not belong. As the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church reject Branches of Christianitythe Creed of Chalcedon that was adopted by the Christian mainstream in A.D. 451, they stand apart from Eastern Orthodoxy as well as Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. But as the diagram posted here shows, this situation is complicated by a number of subsequent unions of theologically disparate Christian branches.

But if the mapping of religion is inherently problematic, that does not mean that all maps of world religions are of equal value—or lack of value. Some basic maps are, of course, much better than others. Recently, moreover, a number of highly innovative and extremely detailed world maps of religion have appeared on the internet. Several GeoCurrents posts next week will examine these maps in some detail. Before doing so, however, I cannot resist pointing out how amusingly bad World Religion Map 2maps of religion can be. I would be tempted to nominate the one posted to the left for the booby prize of the worst world map on the internet.

To begin with, the map deeply distorts basic patterns of both physical and political geography. Note the seaway between North and South America, the misplacement of New Zealand, the division of North Korea into two World Religion Map detailcountries, and so on. A detail of the map’s depiction of central southeastern Europe reveals how laughable it is. But more to the point, consider its portrayal of religion: Guatemala and Costa Rica are non-Christian; Jordan is Jewish: Armenia, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Lake Victoria are Muslim, as is Taiwan; Japan is Christian; both North Koreas are “Chinese”; and Sri Lanka is Hindu. Interestingly, the site on which it is posted, which includes some fine maps of religion, merely notes that it “is a much more generalized map of world religions.” In actuality, this map verges on intellectual malpractice.

*According to a 2012 report by the Gatestone Institute:

Although 64% of the French population (or 41.6 million of France’s 65 million inhabitants) identifies itself as Roman Catholic, only 4.5% (or 1.9 million) of those actually are practicing Catholics, according to the French Institute of Public Opinion (or Ifop, as it is usually called).

By way of comparison, 75% (or 4.5 million) of the estimated 6 million mostly ethnic North African and sub-Saharan Muslims in France identify themselves as “believers” and 41% (or 2.5 million) say they are “practicing” Muslims, according to an in-depth research report on Islam in France published by Ifop.

Taken together, the research data provides empirical evidence that Islam is well on its way to overtaking Roman Catholicism as the dominant religion in France.

In Britain, Islam has overtaken Anglicanism as the dominant religion as more people attend mosques than the Church of England. According to one survey, 930,000 Muslims attend a place of worship at least once a week, whereas only 916,000 Anglicans do the same.

 

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