Cross a few borders and the role of religion in daily life can change completely. In one country, a call to prayer or a packed Sunday service is part of the background noise. In another, a centuries old church mostly works as a landmark. Surveys give us a way to compare, and the most useful one asks a plain question: how important is religion in your life?
The gallery below draws mainly on Pew Research Center’s 2025 study of 36 countries, with fieldwork done in 2024, plus other recent Gallup and Pew work. Globally, Gallup says the median for the importance of religion in daily life has held at about 81 percent since 2007, and it was 83 percent in 2024.[1] Averages hide a lot, so here are sixteen places where the picture gets specific.
Sweden
Relatively few Swedish adults say religion is very important to them, and the figure sits at about one in fourteen.[2] Fewer than half of Swedes surveyed have a religious affiliation.[3] Few countries in the survey look this quiet on the topic.
Swedes were the least likely of all adults surveyed to pray, with two thirds saying they never do.[4] Still, belief hasn’t vanished entirely. More Swedes believe in life after death than call religion very important, and nearly two thirds believe in spirits in animals, parts of nature or objects.[2]
Japan
Fewer than half of Japanese adults identify with a religion, and fewer than one in ten say religion is very important to them.[5] That doesn’t mean temples sit empty. Roughly one in eight Japanese adults goes to a temple or religious service at least monthly.[4]
Prayer shows a slightly different side. About one in five Japanese adults prays daily.[6] Among those who pray daily, roughly one in four calls religion very important, while almost nobody who prays less often does.[7]
Hungary
One analysis of Pew’s data has Hungary tied with Japan and Sweden for the lowest stated religiosity in the entire survey.[8] That might surprise travelers who picture the country’s churches and long Christian history. The numbers say personal devotion is a separate matter.
Even among Hungarian Christians, only about one in eleven says religion is personally very important, and Swedish Christians land at a similar low level.[5] Gallup describes a recurring pattern of its own: low religiosity paired with a Christian identity.[9] Hungary fits that pattern well.
France
Fewer than one in five French adults says religion has a lot of personal importance, a figure shared with South Korea.[5] Few adults in wealthy countries like France say they pray daily.[10] On the surface, that reads as a plainly secular society.
The makeup of the population adds some texture. Pew describes France as largely Christian at 46 percent and religiously unaffiliated at 43 percent, with a sizable Muslim minority of 9 percent.[11] It is the only European country on Pew’s top ten list for religious diversity.[11]
South Korea
South Korea lands in the same low bracket as France. Just under one in five adults there ascribes a lot of personal importance to religion.[5] Yet the country is no religious monoculture.
Pew’s religious diversity score for South Korea is 7.3, compared with 6.9 for France and 5.8 for the United States.[12] In Japan and South Korea, the shares emphasizing religion as part of national identity are relatively small, whatever the religion.[13] Faith is present, but it isn’t tied closely to being Korean.
The Netherlands
Just 46 percent of adults in the Netherlands claim any religious identity.[10] That puts it among the less affiliated societies in Pew’s 2025 comparison, right alongside Japan. A traveler might notice the contrast between handsome old church buildings and modest congregations.
The Dutch pattern is a common European one. In the least religious countries, younger adults are less likely to identify with any religion, and attendance and personal importance are low at every age.[14] Many countries in Europe have reached this stage.[14]
Australia
Australia has changed fast. From 2010 to 2020, the share of the population affiliated with any religion fell by seventeen points, one of the steepest drops Pew measured.[14] Few countries moved that quickly in a single decade.
In Australia, as in six European countries, about half or more of adults say they never pray.[4] Pew groups societies in Europe, East Asia, Australia and Canada together as tending toward lower levels of religiousness.[5]
Uruguay
Uruguay is South America‘s secular outlier. The country officially separated church and state back in 1916.[15] The modern numbers still show momentum.
Religious affiliation there dropped sixteen points between 2010 and 2020.[14] One summary of the 2021 census says 45 percent of Uruguayans responded as nonbelievers, making it the most secular nation in the Americas.[15] Neighboring Chile is also moving that way, since Gallup recorded a twenty point drop in religious importance there.[16]
Indonesia
Indonesia tops the world on daily prayer. In fourteen of the 35 countries surveyed, a majority of adults pray at least once a day, and that includes 95 percent of Indonesians.[4] Nearly all adults there also say they attend religious services at least monthly.[4]
Roughly 87 percent of Indonesians are Muslim.[17] The country also has smaller communities of Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Confucians.[17] One recent write up describes a country that pauses five times a day in a way that is audible and shared.[18]
Bangladesh
Nearly everyone Pew surveyed in Bangladesh, 97 percent, said religion is very important to them.[5] That’s the highest figure recorded anywhere in the study. It’s a striking result in a survey that covered 36 countries.
Bangladeshis also see faith as a social good. About nine in ten adults there are Muslim, and 94 percent say religion mostly helps society.[3] In Sweden, by comparison, 42 percent say religion is helpful.[3]
Kenya
About nine in ten adults in Kenya say religion is very important in their lives, and virtually all identify with a religion.[5] Among Kenyan Christians the share reaches 92 percent, the highest Christian figure in the survey.[5] Few places show such a firm link between a Christian label and daily commitment.
About 84 percent of Kenyans pray every day.[6] One summary notes that evangelical, Pentecostal and Catholic Christianity shapes public life there, from the school day to political speech.[18]
Nigeria
Nigeria shares Kenya’s rate of daily prayer. About 84 percent of Nigerians pray each day.[6] Nearly all adults, 96 percent, attend a religious service at least once a month.[4]
The country’s faith is split. Its population is divided roughly equally between Christianity in the south and Islam in the north.[18] Pew found that about nine in ten Nigerian Muslims pray the five daily salah.[4]
India
India matters because of sheer scale. Indonesia tops the list by share, yet India has the highest absolute number of daily pray-ers, with more than a billion people.[6] About 82 percent of Indian adults say religion is very important.[19]
Around 86 percent of Indians attend services or visit a house of worship at least monthly.[4] That figure isn’t driven by a single religion.[18] Hindus in India are also far more likely than Hindu Americans to place a lot of importance on religion.[5]
Sri Lanka
About nine in ten adults in Sri Lanka say religion is very important in their lives, and virtually all identify with a religion.[5] That puts the island among the most devout places Pew surveyed. It’s also a reminder that devotion isn’t limited to one faith.
Pew found that societies where about eight in ten or more call religion very important include Buddhist, Christian, Hindu and Muslim ones.[2] Pew also singled out Hindus in Sri Lanka, along with those in India and Bangladesh, as placing high importance on religion.[5]
The Philippines
Among Filipino Christians, 88 percent say religion is very important in their lives.[5] That makes the Philippines one of the clearest examples of devotion in a majority Christian country. Gallup’s World Poll likewise found that almost all Filipinos consider religion important.[20]
About 79 percent of Filipinos pray daily, according to a summary of Pew’s 2025 survey.[18] Pew notes that countries where most people pray daily tend to be middle income, such as Nigeria and the Philippines.[10]
Ghana
Ghana rounds out the list as part of a wider regional picture. One analysis of Pew’s 2025 data puts Ghana at 84 percent on stated religious importance, just behind the Philippines among majority Christian countries.[19] The same analysis reports weekly attendance there at roughly 78 percent.[19]
Earlier reporting found that in well over a dozen sub Saharan African nations, more than 80 percent of citizens say religion plays an important role in their lives.[17] Wealth seems to be part of the pattern. In eleven countries where about eight in ten or more adults call religion very important, all have relatively low GDP per capita.[7]
