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Religion and History in Guyana

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Religion and History in Guyana

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Guyana is the only English-speaking country on the South American mainland, and its religious makeup reflects the indentured labor and slave-plantation history that shaped its population: Christians of many denominations, Pentecostal, Anglican, Catholic and Seventh-day Adventist among the largest, make up around six in ten people, descendants of the enslaved Africans and later European settlers brought to work the colony's sugar estates. Hindus, descended largely from indentured laborers brought from India after slavery's abolition, form roughly a quarter of the population, concentrated along the coastal sugar belt, and Muslims, also mostly of Indian descent, add another substantial minority.

Guyana's three largest faiths sit in rough proportion to the three main waves of migration that built the colony, and ethnic and religious identity have long tracked closely with the country's two dominant political coalitions, one drawing support mainly from Guyanese of African descent and the other from those of Indian descent, a pattern the newly discovered offshore oil reserves driving rapid economic change since the late 2010s have not yet disturbed.

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Guyana, Countries
Source Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020Pew Research Center
Sources
Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020
Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 2025View the Source
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