[Buddha-l] how many buddhists...

[Katherine Masis]

Jack, here's one more website to add to the mix, from Harvard University's Pluralism Project.  Note what it says at the end:  "Between one and two million Americans formally practice Buddhism".

Katherine

From:
http://www.pluralism.org/resources/statistics/tradition.php#Buddhism

"Buddhism Statistics: estimates range from  2,450,000  to  3-4 million
            
2-3 million - 2004 World Almanac. 


2,500,000 - Encyclopedia Britannica Online estimate for 2000.



 

            
  Richard Seager writes in Buddhism in America that:

 
 
"A few statistics on American Buddhism are available, but they vary
considerably. One source put the total number of practicing
Buddhists at a round one million in 1990, but another at 5 or 6 million
only a few years later. A
more recent estimate must be considered rough, but appears to be the
best available.




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.



These figures , however, need to be treated with caution.  In the
same year, 1997, Time magazine suggested there were 'some 100,000' American Buddhist
converts.  It did not even venture to estimate the number of Buddhist immigrants.  As a result, we must proceed without definite information regarding the actual
number of American Buddhists.  Suffice it to say, there are a great many and, more important, they
are engaged in practicing the dharma in a wide variety of fascinating ways."




Richard Seager, Buddhism in America, New York: Columbia University Press, 1999,
p.11

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.




Charles Prebish in Luminous Passage: The Practice and Study of Buddhism in
America  (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999) also reprints Bauman's figures.




In the Pluralism Project Directory we list
2207 Buddhist Centers in the United States.


Don Morreale lists over a thousand centers in
the US and Canada in The Complete Guide to Buddhist America. (Boston: Shambhala
Publications, 1998)



2,450,000 -- 2002 Britannica Book of the Year estimate
for 2000.


Between one and two million Americans formally practice Buddhism -- 2000
Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches."
http://www.pluralism.org/resources/statistics/tradition.php#Buddhism