{"id":14875,"date":"2016-08-07T13:01:31","date_gmt":"2016-08-07T07:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globalpress.hinduismnow.org?p=14872&preview_id=14872"},"modified":"2016-08-07T13:01:31","modified_gmt":"2016-08-07T07:31:31","slug":"hinduism-beyond-indian-frontiers-11-countries-with-largest-hindu-population","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/?p=14875","title":{"rendered":"Hinduism beyond Indian frontiers: 11 countries with largest Hindu population"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hinduism\u00a0is commonly\u00a0associated\u00a0with India, but around the globe,\u00a0there are several ancient Hindu communities which do not have their origins in the subcontinent.\u00a0After Christianity and Islam, Hinduism is the third most popular religion on the globe. It has approximately over\u00a01 billion followers\u00a0around the different countries of the world, about 15% of world\u2019s population. India is called the fountainhead of Hinduism. The reason being, over 95% of the total Hindu population resides in India, while the rest are heterogeneously spread around the remaining countries in the world. Hindu Population is accounted for over 13% of the world\u2019s entire population.<\/div>\n

Here is the list of 11 countries with the largest Hindu population:<\/p>\n

I. India<\/strong><\/p>\n

India is known as the birthplace of many religions but Hinduism is the most noteworthy\u00a0one. It is believed that Hinduism began\u00a0many thousand years ago.\u00a0India has\u00a0the world\u2019s largest Hindu population, nearly 94.3% of the total Hindu population live here.Despite being the\u00a0most Hindu-populated country, India is secular.\u00a0Hinduism is a major religion of India, with over\u00a080% of the population recognizing themselves as Hindu, which accounts for over 98 crore people\u00a0in India. The overall population of India believes strongly in the philosophy or the teachings of Hindu culture and traditions. Dispersed\u00a0throughout the length and breadth of the country,almost all the states including the\u00a0union territories in India has a large number of Hindu Populace.<\/p>\n

Hinduism is a major religion of India, with over\u00a080% of the population recognizing themselves as Hindu, which accounts for over 98 crore people\u00a0in India. The overall population of India believes strongly in the philosophy or the teachings of Hindu culture and traditions. Dispersed\u00a0throughout the length and breadth of the country, almost all the states including the\u00a0union territories in India have a large number of Hindu Populace.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Hindus<\/a>

Hindus at Har Ki Pauri near river Ganges via wikipedia.org<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

II. Nepal<\/strong><\/p>\n

The most common religion in the country with almost 81.3% of the population is Hinduism. It is believed that Lord Vishnu had systematized the people of Nepal\u00a0and given them their national flag, with the combination of sun and moon as the emblem on it. The national calendar is based on the Hindu solar calendar. The traditions of people in Nepal is similar to that of the people from the Northern part of India.<\/p>\n

III. Bangladesh<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hinduism is the second most eminent religion in the country. Casing about 8.2% of the population, according to the\u00a0Bangladesh\u00a0Bureau of Statistics for 2011 census. According to an official report, the number of Hindus in Muslim dominating\u00a0Bangladesh has grown by one per cent ,almost 1.70 crores in a year constituting to an\u00a0increase up to 10.7 percent of the population in\u00a02015. Tradition and customs of the Hindus in the country greatly duplicate that of the Indian state of Bengal.<\/p>\n

IV. Indonesia<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bali\u00a0is the famous island and province of\u00a0Indonesia. Unknown to most Hindus in the world, with the total population of 3,112,331- 83.5% of them follows Hinduism. Bali Hinduism is one of the official religions of Indonesia. The Ramayana is a national epic and \u2018culture\u2019 in Indonesia, despite being a Muslim dominated nation.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Balinese<\/a>

Balinese Puja at a temple via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

V. Pakistan<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are around 2 million Hindus living in Pakistan. Most of the Hindu population (over 90%) is mostly concentrated in the Sindh province and are Sindhis. Hindus are not isolated and spread out and are, in fact, organized.\u00a0Despite the brutalities of Pakistan\u2019s former military dictators and the single-minded Islamist, the current percentage of Hindus in the country is degrading, still, Pakistan manages to be one of the largest Hindu population nations in the world.<\/p>\n

VI.\u00a0Sri Lanka<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hinduism\u00a0has a long tradition in Sri Lanka. Hindus currently make up for 12.60%\u00a0of the\u00a0Sri Lankan\u00a0population and are almost exclusively\u00a0Tamils\u00a0apart from minor immigrant communities from India and Pakistan. Hinduism is mainly practiced in the Northeastern region, mostly by the Tamil population and also some Telegu and Malayalis. The majority of Sri Lankan Hindus follow the preaching\u00a0of\u00a0Shaiva Siddhanta.<\/p>\n

VII. Philippines<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hindu communities are prominent in the Philippines and have had significant religious and cultural influence in the country dating back to the precolonial period. Hinduism is currently limited to the small recent immigrant Indian community in the country. Although ,some of the natives have also been practicing Hinduism. Yoga and meditation are also popular.<\/p>\n

VIII. Malaysia<\/strong><\/p>\n

Malaysia being a multicultural country like India, it hosts about 1.78 million Hindus, almost 6.3% of its total population and most of them settled in the western part of the peninsula. Hinduism is the fourth largest religion in Malaysia. Major Hindu festivals that are celebrated in the country include\u00a0Diwali, Pongal, Navratri, <\/em>and Thaipusam.<\/em>\u00a0The country also has many Hindu temples although few\u00a0have been demolished by Malaysian government officials in recent years.<\/p>\n

IX. United States<\/strong><\/p>\n

Though Hinduism is a minority religion in states, a significant number of Hindus resides here. Around 1,790,560 people are Hindus, majority of them being Indian Americans or immigrants from Southeast Asia. American Hindus in 2015 accounted for an estimated 0.7% of the total US population.<\/p>\n

\n
\"President<\/a>

President of the US Barack Obama receives a red shawl from a Hindu priest from Sri Siva Vishnu Temple. Image source: Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

X. South Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hinduism originated in Africa from the late 19th century onwards through the spread of the\u00a0colonial rule.The second country with the highest Hindu population in Africa after Mauritius, South Africa has over 1.1% of the total population, Hindus. Most of them are believed to be immigrants from different parts of India. Present-day South Africa has numerous Hindu temples, where they celebrate the ancient Hindu festival Diwali.<\/p>\n

XI. United\u00a0Arab Emirates<\/strong><\/p>\n

Finally, UAE has a lot of Indian residents and almost 21.5 % of the population practices the religion. The total number of Hindus in the country is around 944,352 a lot of them belonging to the business communities.<\/p>\n

A 2013 news report indicated that a Muslim businessman contributed five acres of land in Abu Dhabi to build a Swaminarayan temple.<\/p>\n

\u2013 by Yajush Gupta of NewsGram<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hinduism\u00a0is commonly\u00a0associated\u00a0with India, but around the globe,\u00a0there are several ancient Hindu communities which do not have their origins in the subcontinent.\u00a0After Christianity and Islam, Hinduism is the third most popular religion on the globe. It has approximately over\u00a01 billion followers\u00a0around the different countries of the world, about 15% of world\u2019s population. India is called the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[1153,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14875"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14875\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}