Major religious groups
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The world's principal religions and spiritual traditions may be classified into a small number of major groups or world religions. According to the 2005 survey of Encyclopædia Britannica, the vast majority of religious and spiritual adherents follow Christianity (33% of world population), Islam (20%), Hinduism (13%), Chinese folk religion (6.3%) or Buddhism (5.9%). The irreligious and atheists make up about 14%, and about 4% follow indigenous tribal religions. A number of classical "world religions" (including Sikhism, Judaism, Bahá'í, Jainism, Shinto and others) are each followed by under 0.5% of the world's population; they are sometimes considered world religions in terms of cultural significance and historic recognition, but are not deemed to be "major religious groups" due to their size.
