South Korea

Religion

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Religion in South Korea (2015 census)

Unaffiliated / / unregistered groups (56.9%) (19.7%) (15.5%) (7.9%)

According to the results of the census of 2015 more than half of the South Korean population (56.9%) declared themselves not affiliated with any . (also known as Sindo or Muism) is the native religion of the Koreans, and it may represent a large part of the unaffiliated. Indeed, according to a 2012 survey, only 15% of the population declared themselves not religious in the sense of "". Of the people who are affiliated with a religious organization, most are and . According to the 2015 census, 27.6% of the population were Christians (19.7% identified themselves as Protestants, 7.9% as Roman Catholics), and 15.5% were Buddhists. Other religions include (130.000 Muslims, mostly migrant workers from Pakistan and Bangladesh but including some 35,000 Korean Muslims,) the homegrown sect of , and a variety of indigenous religions, including (a religion), , , and others. is guaranteed by the constitution, and there is no . Overall, between the 2005 and 2015 censuses there has been a slight decline of Christianity (down from 29% to 27.6%), a sharp decline of Buddhism (down from 22.8% to 15.5%), and a rise of the unaffiliated population (from 47.2% to 56.9%).

Christianity is South Korea's largest organised religion, accounting for more than half of all South Korean adherents of religious organisations. There are approximately 13.5 million Christians in South Korea today; about two thirds of them belonging to Protestant churches, and the rest to the Roman Catholic Church. The number of Protestants has been stagnant throughout the 1990s and the 2000s, but increased to a peak level throughout the 2010s. Roman Catholics increased significantly between the 1980s and the 2000s, but declined throughout the 2010s. Christianity, unlike in other East Asian countries, found fertile ground in Korea in the 18th century, and by the end of the 18th century it persuaded a large part of the population as the declining monarchy supported it and opened the country to widespread proselytism as part of a project of Westernization. The weakness of Korean Sindo, which, unlike Japanese and , never developed into a national religion of high status, combined with the impoverished state of (after 500 years of suppression at the hands of the Joseon state, by the 20th century it was virtually extinct) left a free hand to Christian churches. Christianity's similarity to native religious narratives has been studied as another factor that contributed to its success in the peninsula. The of the first half of the 20th century further strengthened the identification of Christianity with , as the Japanese coopted native Korean Sindo into the Nipponic that they tried to establish in the peninsula. Widespread Christianization of the Koreans took place during State Shinto, after its abolition, and then in the independent South Korea as the newly established military government supported Christianity and native Sindo.

Among Christian denominations, is the largest. About nine million people belong to one of the hundred different Presbyterian churches; the biggest ones are the , , the . South Korea is also the second-largest missionary-sending nation, after the United States.

Buddhism was introduced to Korea in the 4th century. It became soon a dominant religion in the southeastern kingdom of , the region that hitherto hosts the strongest concentration of Buddhists in South Korea. In the other states of the , and , it was made the state religion respectively in 372 and 528. It remained the state religion in () and . It was later suppressed throughout much of the subsequent history under the unified kingdom of Joseon (1392–1897), which officially adopted a strict . Today, South Korea has about 7 million Buddhists, most of them affiliated to the . Most of the are Buddhist artifacts.