[Buddha-l] U.S. Buddhism

[Curt Steinmetz]

 From that font of all wisdom and knowledge, wikipedia:

"The U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom Report for 
2004 indicates that 2% of the U.S. population is Buddhist, which would 
mean a total of 5,973,446 Buddhists. Other estimates, perhaps relying on 
a greater degree of intuition, are larger: in the 1990s, Robert A. F. 
Thurman stated his opinion that there were 5 to 6 million Buddhists in 
America, and others might speculate there are more. Whatever the total 
number, it appears that roughly 75 to 80 percent of Buddhists in the 
U.S. are of Asian descent and inherited Buddhism as a family tradition; 
the remaining 20 to 25 percent are non-Asians."

See: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_the_United_States#Demographics_of_Buddhism_in_the_United_States

The funny thing is, though, that the "Religious Freedom Reports" issued 
by the State Department *do not include data on the United States* - so 
the above claim is very dubious.

Adherents.com has a little chart claiming that 0.5% of the US population 
is Buddhist, as of 2004:
http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#religions

A better wikipedia page (with better references) is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States#Buddhism

According to the above the percentage of Buddhists in the US is between 
0.5% and 0.9%.

Here are some other online sources that give varying estimates:

"American Religious Identification Survey":
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris/key_findings.htm

CIA factbook:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html#People

"US religious identity is rapidly changing":
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/26/us_religious_identity_is_rapidly_changing/

"Buddhism in America":
http://buddhistfaith.tripod.com/pureland_sangha/id65.html

"US Religious Landscape Survey":
http://religions.pewforum.org/reports

Curt Steinmetz

Jackhat1 at aol.com wrote:
> I would like to find the number of Buddhists in the U.S.. Then this  number 
> broken down by percentage by ethnic type, i.e., ethnic Tibetan,  ethnic Zen, 
> etc., and western born type, i.e., western born Tibetan  Buddhist, western born 
> Zen, etc. Does this exist?
>  
> I see all sorts of problems gathering this data but I'm thinking there must  
> be some rough estimates around.
>  
> Jack
>
>
>
>
>
> **************Get the scoop on last night's hottest shows and the live music 
> scene in your area - Check out TourTracker.com!      
> (http://www.tourtracker.com?NCID=aolmus00050000000112)
> _______________________________________________
> buddha-l mailing list
> buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
> http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l
>