• Christianity (including catholic, protestant, orthodox, pentecostal, evangelical etc): 2.1 billion adherents (31.5% of the worlds population)


• Islam (including Shi'ite, Sunni etc): 1.3 billion adherents (19.5%)


• Non-Religious (including secular, agnostic, atheist, those not affiliated with any formal religion etc): 1.1 billion (16.5%)


• Hinduism : 900 million adherents (13.5%)


• Traditional indigenous religions (including African tribal and diasporic): 400 million (6.0%)


• Chinese traditional religions (including Taoism and Confucianism, and
  traditional nonscriptural religious observance.
  : 394 million adherents (5.9%)


• Buddhism: 376 million adherents (5.6%)


• Sikhism: 23 million (0.34%)


• Judaism: 14 million (0.21%)

It is important to note that definitions of religions and adherence vary and religious statistics are influenced by many factors including official government position and perceived benefits / detriments of belonging to a particular religion.

For information on the religions in each country see the religions page in the religion category.

Trinidad and Tobago, like many other countries and territories with combined names, such as Antigua and Barbuda, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Saint Kitts and Nevis consists of two separate areas (in this case, Islands) under one government.

Trindad and Tobago are islands in the Carribean Sea. The name of Trinidad comes from the Spanish 'trinidad' meaning trinity. It was named by Columbus on sighting three peaks. Tobago comes from the Carib word 'tavaco', which means tobacco pipe.

The main religion in Chad is Islam, which accounts for 51% of the population. Other major religious groups include Christian 35%, animist 7% and other 7%. You can find this information on the religions page in the religion category.

No, Japan is not crime-free (neither is any other country in the world). Japan does have relatively low levels of some crimes and a large population which causes per capita rates to be very small. In some cases, eg murders , the per capita rates are so low they are rounded to 0.00 per 1000 people, but this doesn't mean there are no murders in Japan. When the per capita rate for a crime is very low, click the totals link at the top of the page to find the actual number.

In 2000, Japan had a total of 2,443,470 reported crimes including 43,229 assaults, 296,486 burglaries, 309,638 car thefts, 1553 embezzlements, 44,384 fraud cases, 511 manslaughters, 637 murders, 2,260 rapes, 5,173 robberies and 16 Unpaid diplomatic parking fines.

Japan also has 182 jails which house 69,502 prisoners. The japanese legal system includes 3,019 judges and magistrates and 230,756 police.

You are correct in stating that the GDP of a country does not give the full picture as many other factors contribute to quality of life.

The United Nations Human Development Index which measures many criteria including life expectency, literacy, access to healthcare services, access to sanitation and the availability clean drinking water is a more comprehensive measure of average quality of life.

On the Human Development Index South Korea ranks 26th out of 173 countries.

Socioeconomic status indicates the position of a family in society. It is mainly based on family income, parental education level, parental occupation.

Families with high socioeconomic status generally have easy access to information on health, social, emotional and cognitive development of their children. They are also better able to provide their young children with books and toys and encourage their children's learning.

A new report estimates that there will be 137,910 new cases of cancer among African Americans in 2005, and 63,110 cancer deaths. The overall death rate from all cancers combined declined by 1.6 percent among African Americans each year between 1993 and 2001, which is greater than the 1 percent yearly decline seen among whites in the same period.

However, lung cancer rates are 47% higher among African-American men than white men. The death rate from lung cancer is 36% higher than for white men. Lung cancer is expected to claim 15,500 lives among African Americans in 2005.

Colon cancer rates are also higher among African Americans than whites. Colon cancer is the third-leading cause of cancer death among African-American men and women. It is expected to kill about 7,080 African Americans in 2005.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among African-American women, and the second leading cause of cancer death. About 19,240 new cases are expected this year. Breast cancer is actually less common among African-American women than white women, except in the case of women under 40. But African-American women are more likely to die from it. About 5,640 black women are expected to die of breast cancer this year.

Prostate cancer rates are 60% higher in African-American men than white men and death rates are nearly two-and-a-half times higher. About 30,770 prostate cancer cases and 5,050 deaths are expected in 2005.

The Amazon rainforest covers 1.6 million square miles (about the size of western Europe), or 60 percent of Brazil. As much as 20 percent of it has already been logged and burned. It is sometimes called the world’s lungs because its billions of trees produce oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Living fossils that have been around since the time of the dinosaurs, lake sturgeons have elongated cone-shaped snouts, rows of bony armor on their back, can live for over 100 years, and can grow to more than two meters long. A hundred years ago, Canadian fishermen caught millions of kilograms of lake sturgeon every year. Now, sightings of them are rare enough to warrant news coverage and scientists estimate there are fewer than 1,000 lake sturgeons left in the rivers and lakes of western Canada.

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada has declared the species threatened in western Canada and at risk in eastern Canada. Some scientists believe the species population could grow, but most subscribe to the view that there are not enough left to sustain a breeding population, since the sturgeon only spawns once every four to six years.