The percentage of Muslims and Christians in Kazakhstan declines, according to the comparison of two national census of 2009 and 2021. 13 years ago, 70.2 per cent of census participants declared their Islamic identity, and only 69.3 per cent a year ago.
However, in absolute terms, the number of Muslims in Kazakhstan increases along with the increasing population, and makes now 13.3 million out of 19 million people, and in 2009 there were 11.2 million out of 16 million people.
Decrease in the number of Christians is observed both in percentage and quantitative terms. In 2009, every fourth participant of the census (26.2%) declared their Christian identity in Kazakhstan, and in 2021, it’s not even every fifth citizen (17.2%). The number of Christians in Kazakhstan, based on the census data, decreased since 2009 from 4.2 million to 3.3 million.
According to the 2021 census, the followers of Islam among urban population in Kazakhstan amounted to 64.45% on average. This indicator varies much by regions – from 93.91% in Kyzylorda and 91.82% in Turkestan regions to 34.74% and 35.72% in North Kazakhstan and Kostanai regions. The last two regions have the highest percentage of Christians among residents, 59.83% and 44.86%. Although, the average number of followers of this religion in the towns and cities of Kazakhstan is as low as 20.59% of all population.
In rural area, the average percentage of Muslims is higher, 76.86%. Leading regions are again Kyzylorda and Turkestan, with even higher indicators 98.23% and 92.56%.
The highest percentage of Christians among rural population remains in North Kazakhstan region and Kostanai region, 50.82% and 42.67%, respectively. Every tenth rural citizen in Kazakhstan referred to Christianity as their religion (11.82%), on average.
To sum up, the percentage of Muslims among rural residents is higher than among urban residents. It is vice versa with Christians: the percentage of the faithful in rural areas is lower than that in cities and towns. It is worth noting that the same trend was also observed by results of the 2009 census, when 61.2% of urban population said they were Muslims, and 34.2% - Christians. In rural areas, these indicators were 80.8% and 16.8%, respectively.
It is also obvious that distribution of Christians and Muslims correlates with the national structure of population. For example, in 2021, Kazakhs in Kyzylorda region amounted to 96% of population, and in North Kazakhstan region, Russians amounted to almost 45% of population.
Census method “affects” religiosity
Comparing the results of the 2009 and 2021 census, we can see that the number of atheists also decreases, from 2.8% to 2.25% of all census participants. In 2021, the highest percentage of atheists was in Kostanai region, 4.84%, Mangistau region, 4.38% and Almaty region, 4.32%.
However, the percentage of those who refused to specify their religion increased significantly, from 81 thousand people (0.5%) in the 2009 census to 2.1 million (11.01%) in the 2021 census. The majority of those who refused was in Almaty, Shymkent, Almaty region, Mangistau region, where every fifth, on average, decided not to answer this question in the questionnaire.
According to Gulmira Ileuova, sociologist and president of “Strategy” Public Foundation, the decrease in the percentage of believers among the population of Kazakhstan and the significant increase in the number of those who refused to specify their religion may be related to the changes in the census method.
Historian and religious expert Liudmila Burgart in the article “The 2009 Census in the Republic of Kazakhstan: Question of Religion” specified that the census results showed quite a high level of religiosity of people, but emphasised the superficial approach.
“Among those who identified themselves with any given religion there was a significant percentage of those who did not practice their religion, yet traditionally identified themselves as Muslims, Christians, or Buddhists,” Burgart wrote in the article.
Recall that the question of religion was included into the 2009 census for the first time in the history of sovereign Kazakhstan (back in the Soviet period, the question of religion was asked only in the 1937 census). The question specified in the 2009 census as “Religion” contained such positions as Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, refuse to specify, atheist, other. For example, in the 2021 census, Christians were divided into Orthodox (3,269,143 people), Catholics (18,988) and Protestants (9,419).
Main photo: Tatiana Trubacheva