Which religion has about 119 million known adherents in Japan?
Religion in Japan nationwide community. The officially recognized new religions number in the hundreds, and total membership is reportedly in the tens of millions. The largest new religion is Soka Gakkai, a Buddhist sect founded in 1930, which has about 10 million members in Japan. Scholars in Japan have estimated that between 10% and 20% of the population belongs to the new religions, although more realistic estimates put the number at well below the 10% mark. As of 2007, there are 223,831 priests and leaders of the new religions in Japan, three times the number of traditional Shinto priests. Many of these new
Freedom of religion in Japan Freedom of religion in Japan The Article 20 of the Japanese Constitution provides for freedom of religion in Japan, and the government generally respects this right in practice. The government of Japan does not require religious groups to report their membership, so it was difficult to accurately determine the number of adherents to different religious groups. The Agency for Cultural Affairs reported in 2017 that membership claims by religious groups totaled 182 million. This is out of a total population of 127 million, but does not account for overlapping memberships (some families may be registered at both a Buddhist temple