Like many countries in the world, Australia conducts regular censuses of its population. Unlike many countries, however, Australia holds them every five years (instead of ten, like the UK).
This is very useful for identifying trends in the data. Like many countries, Australia includes a question asking for a person’s religion, but unlike many other countries the question is framed to ask for the respondent’s specific denomination or other religious affiliation.
As a consequence it conveys a good overview of Australian religious adherence. In 2011, some 60% of Australians said they were Christian, 9% belonged to other religions, 22% had no religion and 9% did not answer the question (in a population of 22million). The respective figures for the UK in 2011 were 59%, 8%, 26% and 7%, all very similar in a population of 63million – three times the size.
