How do you Identify the Most Religious Place in the World?

On Friday last week, the Pew Research Center released a short article that asks “What is the most religious place in the world?” Read the full here article and learn how they go about answering the question.

One answer to the question could be Africa. Survey respondents on the African continent consistently report that religion is very important in their lives and that they pray at high frequencies.

However, there are other possible answers.

One of those other possible answer is to say that Indonesia—which is obviously not in Africa—-is the most religious place in the world. Indonesia, which is not in Africa, is tied with Senegal, which is in Africa, for the highest percentage of residents that report religion is very important—a massive 98%. But Indonesia is also alone in first place with 98% of residents reporting that they pray daily; Senegal is in third place with less than 90%.

But another answer that a researcher is likely to give you is that it depends on how you measure religion. This is the most honest answer even if it is the most frustrating answer. Prayer might be a very important type of activity for some forms of religion but not for others, and it is inappropriate to treat frequency of prayer as a key measure of religiosity in settings where the main form of religion does not emphasize it.

This last point is one of the big takeaways from the article, so be sure you read to the end to see how the Pew Research Center plans to address this challenge of comparing religiosity across settings.