[Buddha-l] Buddhism, the second largest religion in the world

[jkirk]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: David S 
Re:  Buddhism, the second largest religion in the world.I am happy to see my website has stirred some debate and interesting discussions about the number of Buddhists in the world.
=================================
  From Joanna. Sorry if any of this has already been stated.
  Has anyone seen this? from 
  http://www.pluralism.org/resources/statistics/tradition.php#Buddhism

  Martin Baumann of Germany suggested in 1997 that there were 3 or 4 million Buddhists in the United States, the most in any western country. In contrast, he estimated that there were 650,000 Buddhists in France and 180,000 Buddhists in Great Britain. His estimates also suggest that converts consistently are out numbered by immigrants. In the same year, France had roughly 150,000 converts and 500,000 immigrants, Great Britain 50,000 and 130,000 respectively. In the United States, he estimated there were 800,000 converts and between 2.2 and 3.2 million Buddhists in immigrant communities. 

  Martin Bauman, in The Dharma Has Come West: A Survey of Recent Studies and Sources, on line at http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma/survey.html, writes that in the mid 1990's there are roughly 3-4 million Buddhists in the U.S., which includes 800,000 Euro/American Buddhists. He estimates 500-600 centers, and using a total population figure of 261 million, Buddhists represent 1.6%, which is significantly higher than any of the other countries he lists. 

  In the Pluralism Project Directory we list 2119 Buddhist Centers in the United States.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/private/buddha-l/attachments/20070305/551a5f68/attachment.html