Sikhism by Country 2025

The religion of Sikhism was founded in the 15th century by Guru Nanak. It originates in the Indian region and is one of the world’s newest religions. However, it is the fifth-largest religion in the world and currently has around 25 to 30 million followers. In this article, we will take a closer look at where those followers reside as we learn about the statistics of Sikhism by country as of 2023.

Since the religion has its roots in India, it’s only natural that India has the largest population of Sikh followers. The country currently has 23,786,000 followers, which accounts for around 89.75% of the global Sikh population. Overall, about 1.72% of the country’s total population belongs to the Sikh faith.

The next country with a large following of the religion is Canada. 771,790 people in the country of Canada belong to the Sikh population. That accounts for roughly 3.2% of the total global population of those who follow the Sikh religion. Of Canada’s population, about 2.12% are believed to follow the Sikh religion.

The United Kingdom is also a country with a large number of the Sikh population. Roughly 535,000 citizens of the UK follow the religion. They make up about 2.17% of the global Sikh population and 0.88% of the United Kingdom’s population.

Australia has 210,400 members of the Sikh population living within its borders. Globally, Australia is home to 0.87% of the total Sikh population. 0.83% of its own population follow the religion.

Italy houses 210,000 Sikhs, which constitutes 0.94% of the world’s Sikh population and 0.37% of the population of Italy. Malaysia with 100,000 Sikhs is next, being home to 0.43 of the global Sikh population and 0.3% of its own population.

The United States also has a large number of Sikh followers and is home to just over 70,000 members. This equates to 1.2% of the global population and 0.02% of US residents.

Rounding out the top ten are Thailand with 70,000, United Arab Emirates with 52,000, and New Zealand with 40,908 Sikhs.

Conversely, some countries have very low numbers of Sikh members. For example, the Faroe Islands only have 3 members of the Sikh population, which is about 0.00001% of the global Sikh population as well as about 0.006% of the country’s own population. 116 Sikhs inhabit Mauritius. Iceland and Bangladesh both have 100 citizens each who claim the Sikh faith, while Afghanistan and Trinidad and Tobago have 140 and 150, respectively.

Georgia houses about 200. Panama, Argentina, and Brazil are all home to 300 members each of the Sikh population, which is close to 0.001% of the global population and less than 0.001% of their own populations.