The Buddhism was introduced to China around the Christian era and can be traced far back to Western Han and Eastern Han Dynasties (202 BC -220 AD). Large Buddhist populations live in China (18%), Japan (36%), Taiwan (35%), Macau (17%), North Korea (14%), Nepal (11%), Vietnam (10%), Singapore (33%), Hong Kong (15%) and South Korea (23%). However murky the details may be, it is clear that the trade routes that ran from northwestern India to northern China facilitated both the introduction of Buddhism to Central Asia and the maintenance, for many centuries, of a flourishing Buddhist culture there. Buddhism - Buddhism - Central Asia and China: The spread of Buddhism into Central Asia is still not completely understood. Despite China's shift to atheism after the Communists took control of China in 1949, Buddhism continued to grow in China, especially after the economic reforms in the 1980s. Today there are an estimated 244 million followers of Buddhism in China, according to the Pew Research Center, and over 20,000 Buddhist temples. Buddhism > Buddhists: Amount of Buddhist residents. Its population density is 6.7 people per square mile. 2 Half the world’s Buddhists live in China, according to 2010 Pew Research Center estimates. Official statistics don’t exist, but the Pew Research Center, which surveys religious belief worldwide, estimates some 245 million Buddhists in China, around 18% of the total national population. One of the key forces of Buddhism’s success was Daoism. China has the world’s largest Buddhist population, with an estimated 185–250 million practitioners, according to … Christian > Mormon > Congregations : Total Congregations. Then the developing Buddhism has influenced Chinese culture in a great variety of the areas of philosophy, literature, art, politics, medicine and material culture. Buddhism > Percent Buddhist : Percentage of population that is Buddhist. During the Han Dynasty two natural land routes into China from Buddhist regions existed. Buddhists as a share of the population in India 1951-2011; Registered Buddhist sites in China 2016, by region; Wealth index share in Buddhist households in India 2014 Ethnic Tibetans make up over 90% of the population. The first evidence of Buddhist scriptures in China can be traced back to the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD), almost 2000 years ago, where Buddhism was merged with the native Taoism and folk religion. Buddhism is the dominant religion in Bhutan, Myanmar, Cambodia, Tibet, Laos, Mongolia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Chinese Buddhism and Folk Religions. 150 CE) and took over a century to become assimilated into Chinese culture. Most of the rest of the world’s Buddhists live in East and South Asia, including 13% in Thailand (where 93% of the population is Buddhist) and 9% in Japan (35% Buddhist). It was brought to China by Buddhist monks from India during the latter part of the Han dynasty (ca. The population of the region is 3,180,000 per estimates taken in 2014. I'm from China, but not a Buddhist, I can't provide you with exact statistics number, because I doubt whether our government has ever done that. Still, they make up only 18% of the country’s population. In fact, about half of the world’s Buddhists in 2010 lived in China, though only about one-in-five Chinese people (18%) were Buddhist. To help the Chinese comprehend Buddhist concepts, Buddhists borrowed ideas from Daoism via the Chinese language. It is the 32nd most populous region. By a wide margin, China, with a Buddhist population of 244 million, had the most Buddhists living within its borders in 2010. This is the lowest density of any province-level region in China. 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