Usage Notes

General

• The Religiously Remapped study does not purport to find the exact number of adherents to all faiths in each of Africa’s 53 independent states and in Western Sahara. This is premised on the fact that even the best censuses have a reasonably large margin of error (up to +/- 10%). The accuracy of the project’s maps lies in the comparative estimation of population proportions that adhere primarily to a given religious inclination within the borders of each state under the remit of this study.

• Religion is a very complex phenomenon in Africa. Although many Africans might profess to adhere to a particular creed, it is common knowledge that a great proportion of Africans partake in the religious rites of multiple faiths. Syncretism—which takes this further by fusing rituals and tenets of, usually, a foreign religion and a traditional one—is also a widespread peculiarity. As such, data gathered by religious censuses in many parts of Africa are indicative of the religion that polled Africans primarily adhere to. This study was done with this in mind.

Data Sets And Maps

• Unless otherwise annotated in the footnote section, data is culled from the US Department of State’s 2009 Report on International Religious Freedom. Data with footnote annotations have been chosen, where possible, to fit within a 2-year band of chronometric proximity of the primary data source.

• All sub-section proportions should add up to the given main section proportion (e.g. the proportions of Sunni and Shia Muslims in a country should equal the total population proportion of Muslims in that country).

• Only data of 0.1% or greater is reported in this study. Unless otherwise stated, the term ‘Negligible’ denotes less than 0.1% (and is interpreted with the ‘<0.1’ annotation on the maps).

• The notation ‘N/A’ will be employed where no data is available. Where this is as a result of the absence of a particular religion, the notation ‘n/a’ will replace ‘N/A’.

• The notation ‘c.’ stands for circa or approximately.

• Denominations of a particular religion are lumped together where it is difficult to ascertain individual denominational proportions.

• Unless otherwise stated, ‘Catholic’ stands for Roman-Rite Catholicism, and ‘Protestant’ for all non-Catholic Christian denominations.

Printing

• Please make sure all documents to be printed are scaled to the A4/Letter Size Format as relevant to printer settings.