Question

Where is Islam Practiced in the World? (Provide a Map)

Answer 1

Short answer
- Islam is practiced worldwide, but is concentrated as a majority religion across North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, much of South and Southeast Asia, and large parts of West Africa. There are also substantial Muslim minorities (diasporas) in Europe, North America, and parts of sub‑Saharan Africa, Latin America and Oceania.
- If you want a map: you can either use an existing world map of Muslim populations from reputable sources (Pew Research Center, Wikimedia Commons, CIA World Factbook) or create a custom choropleth map from country-level data. Below I give a concise regional summary, rough size figures, and ready-to-run code to produce a map yourself.

Where Islam is practiced (short regional summary)
- Middle East & North Africa (MENA): Most countries are Muslim-majority (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, etc.).
- Sub‑Saharan Africa: Large Muslim majorities in West Africa (Senegal, Mali, Niger, etc.) and the Sahel; big Muslim populations in Nigeria and the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Djibouti).
- South Asia: Very large Muslim populations in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and a substantial Muslim minority in India.
- Southeast Asia: Indonesia (the world’s largest Muslim-majority country), Malaysia, Brunei; large Muslim communities in southern Philippines.
- Central Asia: Predominantly Muslim (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan).
- Europe & Americas: Significant minority communities across Western/Northern Europe, Russia, the United States, Canada, Brazil, and elsewhere due to migration and historic communities.

Approximate global size and largest national populations (rounded)
- Global: Islam is the world’s second-largest religion — roughly 1.8–2.0 billion adherents (about 24% of the world population).
- Largest national Muslim populations (approx.): Indonesia (~230–270M), Pakistan (~220–250M), India (~180–200M), Bangladesh (~150–170M), Nigeria (~90–110M), Egypt (~90M), Iran (~83M), Turkey (~80–85M), Algeria, Sudan, Morocco, etc.

How to get a ready-made map
- Search keywords: “Muslim population by country map”, “Muslim-majority countries map”, “global distribution of Islam map”, or “Pew Research Center Muslim population map”.
- Reputable sources with maps/data: Pew Research Center (The Future of World Religions report), CIA World Factbook, United Nations data, and Wikimedia Commons (search for “Muslim population map” or “Muslim-majority countries”).

If you want to make your own map (Python / geopandas example)
1) Get country-by-country data with a column of percent Muslim or number of Muslims. Sources: Pew Research spreadsheets, Wikipedia lists (e.g., “List of countries by Muslim population”), CIA World Factbook, or the World Religion Database.
2) Use the code below to create a choropleth map. This example assumes you have a CSV file named muslim_pct_by_country.csv with columns: country, muslim_pct (0–100).

Python code (requires geopandas, pandas, matplotlib, pycountry)
# install packages if needed:
# pip install geopandas pandas matplotlib pycountry

import geopandas as gpd
import pandas as pd
import pycountry
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# load world map (Natural Earth low-res provided by geopandas)
world = gpd.read_file(gpd.datasets.get_path('naturalearth_lowres'))

# load your CSV (country,muslim_pct)
df = pd.read_csv('muslim_pct_by_country.csv')

# Normalize country names using pycountry to help matching
def country_alpha3(name):
try:
return pycountry.countries.lookup(name).alpha_3
except:
return None

df['iso_a3'] = df['country'].apply(country_alpha3)

# Some country names might not match; inspect and fix manually if iso_a3 is null
missing = df[df['iso_a3'].isnull()]['country'].tolist()
if missing:
print('Unmatched country names (fix these in CSV or add mapping):', missing)

# Merge with world GeoDataFrame
merged = world.merge(df, left_on='iso_a3', right_on='iso_a3', how='left')

# Plot: percent Muslim choropleth
fig, ax = plt.subplots(1, 1, figsize=(14, 7))
merged.plot(column='muslim_pct',
ax=ax,
cmap='OrRd',
missing_kwds={'color': 'lightgrey', 'label': 'No data'},
legend=True,
legend_kwds={'label': '% Muslim by country', 'shrink': 0.5})
ax.set_title('Muslim population (% of total population) by country')
ax.set_axis_off()
plt.show()

Notes and tips
- Choose whether to map percent Muslim or absolute numbers (percent highlights where Islam is the majority; absolute numbers highlight national population size).
- If mapping absolute counts, use a log color scale or separate bins to prevent very large-population countries from dominating.
- For presentation-ready maps, use higher-resolution Natural Earth datasets or shapefiles and refine projection/labels.
- If you prefer no-code tools: Datawrapper, Tableau Public, or Google Data Studio can create choropleth maps from a CSV.

If you want, I can:
- Produce and attach a ready-made static map image (I need permission to access a specific dataset and whether you prefer percent vs absolute counts).
- Provide a downloadable country-by-country table of Muslim population/percentage (I can generate approximate figures).
Which would you like?