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statistikk
2020-12-08T08:00:00.000Z
Culture and recreation;Immigration and immigrants
en
trosamf, Religious communities and life stance communities, members, religions (for example christianity, islam, buddism), religious community, Norwegian Humanist AssociationReligion and life stance , Culture and recreation, Culture and recreation, Immigration and immigrants
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Religious communities and life stance communities

Updated

Next update

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Key figures

697 257

members of religious and life stance communities outside the Church of Norway

Members of religious and life stance communities outside the Church of Norway, by religion/life stance. Per 1 January1
2020Percentage change
MembersPer cent2019 - 20202016 - 2020
1Including only members for whom government subsidy is received.
Total697 257100.02.812.1
Baha'ism1 0910.2-2.4-5.0
Buddism21 5553.12.414.6
Hinduism12 1531.76.636.8
Islam182 82626.24.223.4
Judaism7940.1-1.93.1
Christianity372 65153.41.96.8
Sikhism4 0800.62.415.1
Philosophy99 46814.33.310.8
Other religious and philosophical communities2 6390.48.242.7

See selected tables from this statistics

Table 1 
Members of congregations in religious and philosophical communities outside the Church of Norway, by religion/philosophy and county

Members of congregations in religious and philosophical communities outside the Church of Norway, by religion/philosophy and county12
TotalBuddismIslamChristianityOther religion3PhilosophyTotalBuddismIslamChristianityOther religion3Philosophy
1Does not include members living abroad. This means that the total sum of members on county level will be lower than the total number of members of regligious communities and life stance communities
2Including only members for whom government subsidy is sreceived.
3Include Bahài, Judaism, Sikhism and other relgions.
 
 20192019201920192019201920202020202020202020
Total678 43321 044175 507365 85119 75596 276697 25721 555182 826372 65120 75799 468
Viken000000184 6276 02551 50995 2536 95624 884
Østfold (-2019)45 5531 57113 62025 0865484 728000000
Akershus (-2019)91 7983 20623 81246 6064 08114 093000000
Buskerud (-2019)41 7161 17013 01120 7051 8804 950000000
Oslo152 7334 12064 88257 2597 26219 210156 1834 21166 83258 0857 49619 559
Innlandet00000028 2591 0055 99015 2403625 662
Hedmark (-2019)15 6955713 0458 6642043 211000000
Oppland (-2019)13 4034893 0057 1261662 617000000
Vestfold og Telemark00000057 2021 57511 03135 3778668 353
Vestfold (-2019)32 5211 0205 82019 7416695 271000000
Telemark (-2019)24 2595364 79615 8461572 924000000
Agder00000049 9841 5376 92636 8662614 394
Aust-Agder (-2019)17 0454222 05112 811891 672000000
Vest-Agder (-2019)32 3971 0604 56523 9901692 613000000
Rogaland60 1171 95411 74237 8501 3847 18761 7792 02112 33138 5091 4917 427
Vestland00000060 5181 7198 98438 8771 4279 511
Hordaland (-2019)53 4991 5907 83734 5431 3278 202000000
Sogn og Fjordane (-2019)6 7681241 3594 1481011 036000000
Møre og Romsdal21 3048552 63514 5465332 73521 6198722 58314 8075162 841
Trøndelag - Trööndelage35 9121 5047 01717 4798309 08237 0651 5557 09018 0948449 482
Nordland15 8553932 5939 3751383 35615 7633922 4849 2841413 462
Troms og Finnmark - Romsa ja Finnmárku00000016 8324313 1859 6771953 344
Troms - Romsa (-2019)11 3612912 1706 2921312 477000000
Finnmark - Finnmárku (-2019)5 3651261 0293 34365802000000
County not stated1 13242518441211107 4262123 8812 582202549

Table 2 
Members1 of religious and life stance communities outside the Church of Norway, by religion/life stance. Per 1 January. Figures and per cent

Members1 of religious and life stance communities outside the Church of Norway, by religion/life stance. Per 1 January. Figures and per cent1
20192020
Members in religious and philosophical communitiesPer centMembers in religious and philosophical communitiesPer cent
1Including only members for whom government subsidy is received.
2One community not represented in the statistics for 2012
Total678 433100.0697 257100.0
Baha'ism1 1180.21 0910.2
Buddism21 0443.121 5553.1
Hinduism11 4051.712 1531.7
Islam175 50725.9182 82626.2
Judaism28090.17940.1
Christianity365 85153.9372 65153.4
Sikhism23 9840.64 0800.6
Life stance96 27614.299 46814.3
Other religious and philosophical communities2 4390.42 6390.4

Table 3 
Members of Christian communities outside the Church of Norway. Per 1 January

Members of Christian communities outside the Church of Norway. Per 1 January1
20162017201820192020
11 Including only members for whom government subsidy is received.
Total349 083339 492355 070365 851372 651
Adventists4 7784 6954 6484 6344 642
The Free Evangelican Congregation3 3183 1693 2643 1833 127
The Evangelical Lutheran Free Church of Norway18 90819 46919 21519 50019 313
The Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Congregation4 1171 2902 1872 1982 180
The Icelandic Evangelical Lutheran Congregation in Norway6 8301 0662 7405 6196 008
The Christian Church8 1778 4178 2358 5138 726
The Orthodox Church20 20221 99325 84327 03428 544
The Roman Catholic Church144 856152 022157 220160 884165 254
The Evangelical Lutheran Church Community3 1773 1723 1763 1513 139
The Norwegian Baptist Union10 36710 51010 71110 73110 823
Church of Norway Mission Convenant10 59810 84310 95911 08711 223
Jehovahs Witness12 41312 47912 56612 68012 661
The Christian Community2 5502 4832 4812 4552 428
Christian centres3 0012 9652 9382 9242 968
The Methodist Church in Norway10 53110 43210 32010 19010 000
Pentecostal Congregations39 43139 26340 05640 63240 725
Church of Sweden21 6899 48312 33213 26413 108
Others24 14025 74126 17927 17227 782

About the statistics

The statistics show how many people are members of religious and life stance communities outside the Church of Norway. Statistics on religious and life stance outside the Church of Norway are based on reports from county governors for communities applying for state subsidies.

Definitions

Definitions of the main concepts and variables

Religious community: Approved religious community according to act of 13 June 1969.

Life stance community: Approved life stance community according to act of 12 June 1981.

Standard classifications

Classifications for this statistics are based on the application form from the communities. Statistics Norway has been responsible for the categorization of communities at the organizational level, partly based on the new application form as well as the old form. Numeric codes are made as a help to IT-work.

.

Administrative information

Name and topic

Name: Religious communities and life stance communities
Topic: Culture and recreation

Responsible division

Division for Education and Culture Statistics

Regional level

National and county level

Frequency and timeliness

Yearly except for 2005

International reporting

Irrelevant

Microdata

All statistics on religious and life stance communities in Statistics Norway is stored in a responsible and standardized manner in consultation with Datatilsynet

Background

Background and purpose

The main purpose of these statistics is to show how many people are members of religious and life stance communities outside the Church of Norway. Statistics on religious and life stance outside the Church of Norway are based on reports from county governors for communities applying for state subsidies. The statistics have been published in SSB since 1972. Before 1972 the statistics were based on data from the population consensus.

Users and applications

Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs, other government services, research institutions, religious and life stance communities, media, students and others interested in the subject.

 

Equal treatment of users

No external users have access to the statistics and analyses before they are published and accessible simultaneously for all users on ssb.no at 08 am. Prior to this, a minimum of three months' advance notice is given inthe Statistics Release Calendar. This is one of Statistics Norway’s key principles for ensuring that all users are treated equally.

Coherence with other statistics

These statistics can be seen in connection with statistics on Church of Norway.

Legal authority

This statistic encompasses religious communities and life stance communities by the Act on religious communities and life stance communities (trossamfunnsloven), in addition to the regulation on registration and grants for religious communities and life stance communities (trussamfunnsforskrifta). The data is collected with legal basis in the Statistics Act (statistikkloven), Act of 21 June 2019 No. 32 relating to official statistics and Statistics Norway § 10.

EEA reference

Irrelevant

Production

Population

All religious and life stance communities that have been approved by the county governors and which receive state subsidies are represented in the statistics. The statistical unit is a community. According to the law all religious and life stance communities outside the Church of Norway have the same right to apply for state subsidy, but some communities do not make use of this right. The statistics do not include information on the number of congregations and do not distinguish between registered and unregistered communities. Communities not applying for subsidy one year are not represented in the statistics for that year.

In a registered community the applications has to contain certain information and the priest or the principal has tasks decreed by law. As concerns the unregistered communities less information is required and the priest cannot carry out tasks decreed by law.

Data sources and sampling

Data source for this statistics is electronic data from the Brønnøysund Register Centre (BRC). The data is based on applying scheme with assignment of the members. As of 2005 the assignments were sent to BRC for check. After the yearly check is carried out the data file is electronically exported Statistics Norway. The statistics includes all the communities applying for subsidies each year.

Irrelevant

Collection of data, editing and estimations

The data file is sent electronically from Brønnøysund Register Centre to Statistics Norway when they have completed the necessary control of the member lists received from the county governors.

BRC is responsible for the control on behalf of the Ministry of Culture. The control of the member lists is mainly checking up on double membership (at the individual level) between all religious and life stance communities and the Church of Norway (Dnk) and the National register. BRC has executed the necessary controls of the business number and personal identification number, and thus eliminates duplicates. The data file that Statistics Norway receives contains information on the organizational level per municipality. Data is compared with data the year before. Figures that differ too much from previous year will be checked particularly.

Statistics on religious and life stance communities is a summary statistic. Apart from summary of reported figures, no special analysis is made.

Seasonal adjustment

Not relevant

Confidentiality

The data can be defined as sensitive and figures will be replaced with dots if there are below three observations in a cell.

Comparability over time and space

Statistics Norway has produced official statistics on members of religious and life stance communities since 1971 based on questionnaires that county governors receive in connection with the awarding of state grants. Members are considered those who have affiliation with a church, i.e. children below 16 years, when they are not enrolled in the Church of Norway. The distribution by county is where congregations are registered, and do not always match county of residence to each member. Before 1970 SSB published tables on religion based on consensus data.

From 2005 the number of members is based on a new registration system. Comparison of tables with previous years must bee done with care. One should also be careful not to make comparisons between the 2005-2006-2007 when clearing work with duplicates had special focus those years. The distribution by county is from 2006 based on county of residence to members.

 

Accuracy and reliability

Sources of error and uncertainty

The statistics for the religious and life stance communities comprises only communities of members that has requested for and received state subsidies for each year. A source of error can be that some communities forget to apply or because of some other reasons are not represented in the statistics. In 2012 two relatively large communities was not represented in the statistics, but are represented in the statistics per 1.1.2013

As of 2005 SSB has received the electronic data from Brønnøysund Register Centre. SSB consider the quality to have been considerable improved after the duplicate check.

 

Revision

Not relevant