Less than half of the population of England and Wales declared themselves Christian in the latest census, the British Bureau of Statistics (ONS) reported Nov. 29. This is the first such case since the beginning of regular population censuses.

According to last year's census, almost all people living in England and Wales - 94%, or 56 million people, answered the question of what religious denomination they belong to. In the previous census in 2011, 92.9% - 52.1 million - indicated their religious affiliation.

In the 2021 census, 27.5 million people said they were Christians - this is 46.2% of respondents. The Statistics Office underlines in a report released Tuesday that for the first time in the history of the census in England and Wales, less than half of those who answered the question about religion identified themselves as Christians.

Last year's figure represents a ten-year decline of 13.1 percentage points, as 59.3% of the population of England and Wales - 33.3 million people - identified themselves as Christian in the 2011 census.

The second most common answer was "non-religious", that is, an atheist. In the 2021 census, 37.2% - 22.2 million respondents - said they did not belong to any religious community. In 2011, 25.2% of the English and Welsh - 14.1 million permanent residents of England and Wales - said they did not consider themselves religious.

The share of Muslims in England and Wales increased from 4.9% to 6.5%, from 2.7 million to 3.9 million.

1.7% of the population of England and Wales - one million respondents - said in 2021 that they were members of the Hindu community. Ten years earlier, their share was 1.5%, and their number was 818 thousand people.

The share and size of the Jewish population remained virtually unchanged, with 0.5% of the population of England and Wales identifying as Jewish last year and in 2011. Last year, 271,000 respondents identified themselves as Jews in the census, and a decade earlier, 265,000

In London, England's most religiously complex city, 40.7% of the population - 3.6 million metropolitan residents - said they were Christian. The share of Muslims rose to 15% from 12.6% ten years earlier. The share of Hindus has not changed much. In 2011, 5% and last year 5.1% said they belonged to the London Hindu community.

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