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Christianity is the largestreligion in Tanzania, with a substantialMuslim population as well. Smaller minority populations ofAnimists,African traditional religions amongst other faith practitioners, andreligiously unaffiliated people are also present.[1][2]
Tanzania is officially asecular state, and freedom of religion is enshrined in the country's constitution. Both Christian and Islamic feasts are recognized as public holidays.
Current statistics on the relative sizes of various religions inTanzania are limited because religious questions have been eliminated from government census reports since 1967. Estimates for 2010 published by the Pew Research Center in 2012 indicated that 61.4% of the population were Christian, 35.2% Muslim, 1.8% practiced traditional folk religions and 1.4% were unaffiliated.[2] A projection by the Pew Research Center based on these numbers estimated that 63% of the population in 2020 were Christian, 34% Muslim, 2% unaffiliated and 1% adhered to various Folk religions.[4] According to theAssociation of Religion Data Archives (ARDA), 55.3% of the population isChristian, 31.5% isMuslim, 11.3% practices traditional faiths, while 1.9% of the population isnon-religious or adheres to other faiths as of 2020.[1]
According to the 2020 ARDA estimate, 29% of the population wasProtestant and 27% wasCatholic.[5] According to a Pew Research Center study conducted in 2012, 40% of the Muslim population of Tanzania identifies asSunni, 20% asShia, and 15% asAhmadiyya, with 20%not specifying a denomination.[6] The ARDA estimates that most Tanzanian Muslims are Sunni, with a significant Shia minority, as of 2020.[1]
Religion-related statistics for Tanzania have been regarded as notoriously biased and unreliable.[7]About 99 percent of the population inZanzibar is Muslim.[8] The largest religion inDar es Salaam is Islam, comprising around 70% of its total population.[9] There are also active communities of other religious groups, primarily on the mainland, such as Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, and Bahá'ís.[10]
The Christian population is largely composed of Roman Catholics and Protestants. Among the latter, the large number ofLutherans andMoravians point to the German past of the country while the number of Anglicans point to the British history of Tanganyika. All of them have had some influence in varying degrees from the Walokole movement (East African Revival), which has also been fertile ground for the spread of charismatic and Pentecostal groups.[11]
On the mainland, Muslim communities are concentrated in coastal areas, with some large Muslim majorities also in inland urban areas especially and along the former caravan routes. 30% of the country's Muslim population isSunni; the remainder consists of severalShia subgroups (40%), mostly ofIndian descent and theAhmadiyya (15%),[12][13] and a smaller subset ofIbadism andnondenominational Muslim practitioners.[14]
Hinduism is a minority religion in Tanzania practiced mainly by the South Asian diaspora.
The government of Tanzania and the semiautonomous government ofZanzibar both recognize religious freedom as a principle and make efforts to protect it. The government of Zanzibar appointsMuslim religious officials in Zanzibar. The main body of law in Tanzania and Zanzibar issecular, but Muslims have the option to use religious courts for family-related cases. Individual cases of religiously motivated violence have occurred against bothChristians and Muslims, as well as those accused ofwitchcraft.[15] The freedom to practice religion is ahuman right in Tanzania.
In 2023, Tanzania scored 3 out of 4 for religious freedom.[16]
Christian celebrationsChristmas,Easter (includingGood Friday andEaster Monday) andBoxing Day are recognised aspublic holidays. Similarly Islamic feastsEid al-Fitr,Mawlid andEid al-Adha are also recognised.[17]
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain.
