Divinity Atlas

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Mongolia

Also Known As Mongolian
Asia

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Mongolia carries two religious inheritances. Tibetan Buddhism of the Gelug school arrived in force after the sixteenth century conversion of Altan Khan, who conferred the title Dalai Lama, and by the early twentieth century a very large share of Mongolian men were monks. The purges of 1937 and 1938 under Choibalsan destroyed nearly every monastery in the country and killed thousands of lamas, leaving Gandantegchinlen in Ulaanbaatar as a token survivor. Buddhism has been rebuilt since the democratic transition of 1990, largely from scratch and with Tibetan and Indian assistance. Beneath and alongside it runs a shamanic tradition addressed to sky, mountain and ancestor spirits, often described under the modern label Tengrism, which has revived vigorously in the same period. A large share of the population reports no religion at all.

Facts
Law and State
Establishment Status
No Establishment 3
The constitution separates religion and state and guarantees freedom of conscience.
State Funding Mechanism
Mongolia funds Buddhist heritage restoration selectively but not other religions. In 2019 the government provided 178 million tugriks, about 65,100 dollars, toward restoring the Zankhan Temple, an annex of the Choijin Lama Temple and Museum complex in Ulaanbaatar; the government did not provide similar subsidies to other religious groups. State funding for religious curricula is barred, while secular curricula at public and private schools remain state-fundable. 4
Apostasy or Blasphemy Law
Mongolia has no blasphemy or apostasy statute in its current Criminal Code, adopted in 2015 and effective 1 September 2017. The religion-specific provision is Article 14.4, Obstructing the Exercise of Freedom of Religion or Conscience, which criminalizes using or threatening force to obstruct a religious organization's operation or rituals, punishable by a fine, community service or a travel restriction; religion also appears as a protected characteristic under the Criminal Code's hate-crime aggravator provisions. 5
Registration or Recognition Regime
Religious organisations must register with local authorities, and registration renewals have been reported as an obstacle for some Christian groups. 3
Ban or Official Watchlist
No religious group is currently banned in Mongolia, and Mongolia carries no USCIRF Country of Particular Concern or Special Watch List designation. The clearest documented state action against a specific group came in 2017, when the Ulaanbaatar city council canceled a Jehovah's Witnesses congregation's registration, citing a potential threat to national security; the Ulaanbaatar Court of First Instance struck down that cancellation the same year, but the council never acted to renew the registration afterward. 6
Concordat BasisSourced to the subject's own account
Mongolia holds no concordat with the Holy See. Diplomatic relations were established on 4 April 1992, and the Catholic Church in Mongolia is still governed as an Apostolic Prefecture rather than a full diocese, led by Bishop Giorgio Marengo, appointed Apostolic Prefect in 2020. Pope Francis made the first ever papal visit to Mongolia in 2023, a milestone that arrived without any accompanying bilateral treaty. 7
Geography
Latitude
46.9 degrees north 2
Approximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a country's extent has no single center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a survey measurement.
Longitude
103.8 degrees east 2
Approximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a country's extent has no single center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a survey measurement.
Status
Legal Status
The constitution separates religion and state and guarantees freedom of conscience; religious organisations must register with local authorities, and registration renewals have been reported as an obstacle for some Christian groups. 3
Demographics
Religious Composition
Around half Buddhist, chiefly Tibetan Buddhism of the Gelug school, with roughly 40 per cent reporting no religion and smaller Muslim, shamanist and Christian populations (Pew Research Center, Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020; Mongolia National Statistics Office). 1
Government
Capital
Ulaanbaatar 2
Government Type
semi-presidential republic 2
Sovereignty Status
Sovereign UN member state 2
Established Year
1911 2
29 December 1911 (independence declared from China; in actuality, autonomy attained); 11 July 1921 (from China)
Location
Location of Mongolia Afghanistan Albania Algeria Angola Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cabo Verde Cambodia Cameroon Canada Chile China Colombia Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia Federated States of Micronesia Fiji Finland France French Polynesia Gabon Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Guam Guatemala Haiti Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Ivory Coast Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kuwait Laos Latvia Lebanon Libya Lithuania Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Mali Malta Mauritius Mexico Moldova Mongolia Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nigeria North Macedonia Norway Oman Pakistan Palestine Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands South Africa South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tanzania Thailand Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe
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Religion and History in Mongolia

Mongolian religion has two roots and one catastrophe. The older root is a sky centred practice addressed to Tenger, to mountain and river masters and to ancestors, marked by the ovoo cairns still built on passes and circled three times by travellers, and conducted by shamans whose drums and rituals are attested from the earliest sources on the steppe. The second root is Tibetan Buddhism.

Kublai Khan patronised the Sakya lama Phagpa in the thirteenth century, but the decisive conversion came in 1578 when Altan Khan met Sonam Gyatso and conferred on him the title Dalai Lama, the Mongolian word for ocean, retroactively applied to his two predecessors. Gelug Buddhism then became the dominant institution of Mongolian life, and by 1900 a very large proportion of Mongolian men were monks and the monasteries held much of the country's wealth and nearly all of its literacy.

The Bogd Khan, the eighth Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, was both religious head and, from 1911, head of state. The catastrophe was the purge of 1937 and 1938, in which the communist government under Khorloogiin Choibalsan closed or destroyed nearly every one of some seven hundred monasteries and killed clergy in the tens of thousands.

Rebuilding After 1937 and the Return of the Shamans

What was destroyed in 1937 was not only buildings but transmission. Buddhist teaching in Mongolia was carried by lineage, and killing a generation of teachers severed lines that texts alone could not restore, which is why the revival since 1990 has depended so heavily on Tibetan and Indian institutions and on monks trained in exile communities in India. Gandantegchinlen in Ulaanbaatar was permitted to reopen in 1944 as a showpiece for foreign visitors, with a token number of monks, and became the seed of the recovery; its Migjid Janraisig statue, melted down during the Soviet period, was rebuilt and reconsecrated in 1996.

The recognition of the tenth Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, announced in 2023 as a boy born in the United States, brought the Mongolian lineage directly into the dispute between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government over who may identify reincarnations, a question with obvious consequences for a country between Russia and China. Alongside the Buddhist recovery there has been a striking shamanic one. Practitioners now number in the thousands where they were officially non existent, serving urban clients as often as rural ones, and the revival is entangled with national identity and with the rehabilitation of Chinggis Khan as a state symbol. Whether it is continuity or reconstruction is genuinely disputed among scholars.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

This source names Mongolia directly: "Religious Freedom Report on Mongolia, mirrored by ecoi.net, read 2026-08-22."

This source names Mongolia directly: "Religious Freedom Report on Mongolia, mirrored by ecoi.net, read 2026-08-22."

The steles raised for him and for his brother Kul Tigin stand in the Orkhon valley in central Mongolia.

Source Orkhon inscriptions (the Kul Tigin and Bilge Khagan steles)Anonymous (Old Turkic royal inscription)

The Uyghur capital, Karabalgasun, stood in the Orkhon valley. His adoption of Manichaeism about 762 is recorded on the trilingual inscription there and in Chinese sources, and it is the only case of Manichaeism becoming a state religion.

Source Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol EmpireChristopher P. Atwood
Buddhism, Religions

Tibetan Buddhism of the Gelug school, established after the conversion of Altan Khan, destroyed in the purges of 1937 and rebuilt since 1990.

Source Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020Pew Research Center

This source names Mongolia directly: "The Wikipedia article on Buddhism in Mongolia, stating that Buddhism, overwhelmingly the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, is practiced by 51.7 percent of Mongolia's total population according to..."

This source names Mongolia directly: "Wikipedia's article on Buddhism in Mongolia, community-edited."

Source Buddhism in Mongolia (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Mongolia directly: "relations between the Holy See and Mongolia were established on 4 April 1992, that the Catholic Church in Mongolia is governed as an Apostolic Prefecture rather than a full diocese, currently led by..."

Source Catholic Church in Mongolia (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Mongolia directly: "Atwood is a historian of Mongolia and Inner Asia, and this Facts on File volume is a single author reference encyclopedia covering the Mongol Empire and the broader Turkic Mongolic steppe world from..."

Source Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol EmpireChristopher P. Atwood

Active in the Mongol confederation as Chinggis Khan rose. What is known of him comes from the Secret History and from Rashid al-Din, both written after his killing by the khan's family.

Source The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth CenturyIgor de Rachewiltz (translator and commentator)

This source names Mongolia directly: "The stele stands today in the Orkhon Valley, Mongolia, within the Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape UNESCO World Heritage Site."

Source Orkhon inscriptions (the Kul Tigin and Bilge Khagan steles)Anonymous (Old Turkic royal inscription)

This source names Mongolia directly: "their location in the Orkhon Valley, Mongolia, a UNESCO World Heritage cultural landscape."

This source names Mongolia directly: "on the Stalinist repressions in Mongolia, community-edited."

Source Stalinist Repressions in Mongolia (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Tengrism, Religions

Shamanic practice addressed to sky, mountain and ancestor spirits, often labelled Tengrism, has revived strongly since the democratic transition.

Source Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020Pew Research Center

This source names Mongolia directly: "mountains including Burkhan Khaldun in Mongolia, the festival names Yilgayakh and Yhyakh without further description, and its status as a beliefless-in-a-founder folk religion with only documentary..."

This source names Mongolia directly: "ties to Buddhist centers in Tibet and Mongolia into the late eighteenth century."

This source names Mongolia directly: "in the Old Turkic inscriptions of Mongolia."

This source names Mongolia directly: "own account of its work among the Mongolian people, stating that Brad and Cathie Jolly began the mission's work in Mongolia in 1991, when the newly post-Communist country had fewer than ten known..."

Source Who We Serve: Mongolians (Adventist Frontier Missions)Adventist Frontier Missions

The first Jebtsundamba Khutuktu and head of the Buddhist establishment in Khalkha Mongolia. He devised the Soyombo script, whose first character is on the Mongolian flag.

Source Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol EmpireChristopher P. Atwood

Contains

Originated Here

Evenki, Cultures
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors
Mongols, Cultures

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Sources
1. Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020
Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 2025View the Source
2. The World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency)
Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence AgencyView the Source
3. International Religious Freedom Report
United States Department of State, Office of International Religious Freedom, US Department of State, 2023View the Source
4. 2019 Report on International Religious Freedom: Mongolia (US Department of State, via ecoi.net)
US Department of StateView the Source
5. Hate Crime Legislation in Mongolia (OSCE/ODIHR)
OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human RightsView the Source
6. 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom: Mongolia (US Department of State, via ecoi.net)
US Department of StateView the Source
7. Catholic Church in Mongolia (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, WikipediaView the Source
The Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition
Oxford University Press, Oxford University Pressdemonym / adjectival formView the Source
Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024Originated Here: EvenkiView the Source
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