Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

is the most widely professed religion in Tanzania, with a substantial

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

minority. Smaller populations of

Animists Animism (from Latin: ' meaning 'breath, spirit, life') is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Potentially, animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, hu ...

, practitioners of other faiths, and religiously unaffiliated people are also present. Current statistics on the relative sizes of various religions in

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...

are limited because religious questions have been eliminated from government census reports since 1967. A 2020 estimate by Pew Research Center revealed that 63.1% of the population is Christian, 34.1% Muslim, 1.2% practices traditional religions and 1.5% is unaffiliated. However, according to the

Association of Religion Data Archives The Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) is a free source of online information related to American and international religion. One of the primary goals of the archive is to democratize access to academic information on religion by making th ...

(ARDA), 55.3% of the population is

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

, 31.5% is

, 11.3% practices traditional faiths, while 1.9% of the population is

non-religious Irreligion or nonreligion is the absence or rejection of religion, or indifference to it. Irreligion takes many forms, ranging from the casual and unaware to full-fledged philosophies such as atheism and agnosticism, secular humanism and anti ...

or adheres to other faiths as of 2020. According to a 2015 study, 27.7% of the population was

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

and 25.6% was

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. According to a Pew Research Center study conducted in 2012, 40% of the Muslim population of Tanzania identifies as

Sunni Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagr ...

, 20% as

Shia Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest Islamic schools and branches, branch of Islam. It holds that the Prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad designated Ali, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his S ...

, and 15% as

Ahmadiyya Ahmadiyya (, ), officially the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community or the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at (AMJ, ar, الجماعة الإسلامية الأحمدية, al-Jamāʿah al-Islāmīyah al-Aḥmadīyah; ur, , translit=Jamā'at Aḥmadiyyah Musl ...

, besides a smaller subset of

Ibadism The Ibadi movement or Ibadism ( ar, الإباضية, al-Ibāḍiyyah) is a school of Islam. The followers of Ibadism are known as the Ibadis. Ibadism emerged around 60 years after the Islamic prophet Muhammad's death in 632 AD as a moderate sc ...

practitioners as well as

non-denominational Muslim Non-denominational Muslims () are Muslims who do not belong to, do not self-identify with, or cannot be readily classified under one of the identifiable Islamic schools and branches. Non-denominational Muslims are found primarily in Central Asi ...

s. The ARDA estimates that most Tanzanian Muslims are Sunni, with a small Shia minority, as of 2020.

Statistics

For many years estimates have been repeated that about a third of the population each follows Islam, Christianity and traditional religions. Religion-related statistics for Tanzania have been regarded as notoriously biased and unreliable. About 99 percent of the population in

Zanzibar Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islands ...

is Muslim. The largest religion in

Dar es Salaam Dar es Salaam (; from ar, دَار السَّلَام, Dâr es-Selâm, lit=Abode of Peace) or commonly known as Dar, is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of Dar es Salaam Region. With a population of over s ...

is Islam, comprising around 70% of its total population. There are also active communities of other religious groups, primarily on the mainland, such as Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, and Bahá'ís.

Abrahamic

Christianity

The Christian population is largely composed of Roman Catholics and Protestants. Among the latter, the large number of

Lutherans Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched ...

and

Moravians Moravians ( cs, Moravané or colloquially , outdated ) are a West Slavic ethnographic group from the Moravia region of the Czech Republic, who speak the Moravian dialects of Czech or Common Czech or a mixed form of both. Along with the Silesi ...

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.

Islam

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. 40% of the country's Muslim population is

; the remainder consists of several

subgroups (20%), mostly of Indian descent and the

(15%),International Religious Freedom Report 2007: Tanzania
United States

Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Affairs (DRL) is a bureau within the United States Department of State. The bureau is under the purview of the Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights. DRL's resp ...

(September 14, 2007). ''This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...

.'' and a smaller subset of

and

nondenominational Muslim Non-denominational Muslims () are Muslims who do not belong to, do not self-identify with, or cannot be readily classified under one of the identifiable Islamic schools and branches. Non-denominational Muslims are found primarily in Central Asi ...

practitioners.Wortmann, Kimberly T. Omani Religious Networks in Contemporary Tanzania and Beyond. Diss. 2018.

Bahá'í Faith

Judaism

Indian religions

Buddhism

Hinduism

Hinduism is a minority religion in Tanzania.

Sikhism

Freedom of religion

The government of Tanzania and the semiautonomous government of

both recognize religious freedom as a principle and make efforts to protect it. The government of Zanzibar appoints

religious officials in Zanzibar. The main body of law in Tanzania and Zanzibar is

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...

, but Muslims have the option to use religious courts for family-related cases. Individual cases of religiously motivated violence have occurred against both

Christians Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

and Muslims, as well as those accused of

witchcraft Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have us ...

.
International Religious Freedom Report 2017 Tanzania
', US Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. The freedom to practice religion is a human right in Tanzania.

Notable places of worship

Azania Front Lutheran Church The Azania Front Lutheran Church is a lutheranism, Lutheran church in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, serving as a cathedral for the local diocese. It is among the most well-known landmarks and tourism, tourist attractions of the city. It is in the city c ...

– Lutheran *

Christ Church, Zanzibar Christ Church is an Anglican cathedral in Stone Town, Zanzibar, Tanzania. It belongs to the Anglican Church of Tanzania. It is a landmark historical church, as well as one of the most prominent examples of early Christian architecture in East Afr ...

– Anglican *

Gaddafi Mosque Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi is the largest mosque in Tanzania and the second largest in East Africa after the Uganda National Mosque in Uganda. It is located in the Tanzanian capital of Dodoma. It was named after the former Libyan Brotherly Lea ...

– Islamic *

Great Mosque of Kilwa The Great Mosque of Kilwa is a congregational mosque on the island of Kilwa Kisiwani, in Kilwa Masoko in Kilwa District in Lindi Region of Tanzania. It was likely founded in the tenth century, but the two major stages of construction date to th ...

– Islamic (Historical) * Ijumaa Mosque – Islamic *

Kizimkazi Mosque The Kizimkazi Dimbani Mosque (''Misikiti wa kale wa Kizimkazi Dimbani'' in Swahili) is a mosque Loc