World Religion Database: Impressive—But Improvable

Abstract

January 2010 T World Religion Database (WRD) is part of a most impressive data-collection project, requiring an extraordinary number of hours to create. The WRD can and will be improved over time, but we can only thank the editors now for their extremely valuable service, including their work of overseeing hundreds of people behind the scenes gathering the data. Although based on the World Christian Encyclopedia (WCE, 1982; 2d ed., 2001), WRD goes beyond it in several important ways. First, for those interested in statistical research, WRD data are downloadable as Excel® files. Second, for many countries in the data set, WRD lists censuses and surveys that give alternate estimates of religious distribution. This is extremely helpful, since it allows scholars to compare WRD estimates with those of others and to evaluate the quality of data used to estimate religious distribution in particular countries. Third, WRD provides data on more countries, regions, and time periods than does any other source. Fourth, WRD provides incredibly detailed data. Previous versions had data at the national level, but WRD presents it World Religion Database: Impressive—but Improvable