Hong Kong, China (SAR)

Living in a mostly secular society, Hong Kong Chinese typically feel no need to formally identify themselves as “members” of any religious tradition. They feel free to participate in any of several Chinese religious traditions as needed, without belonging to one. Some scholars describe practice simply as “local religion,” a mélange of Taoist, Buddhist and local religious practices. These practices include temple festivals to celebrate deities’ birthdays, intercession to patron deities to solve problems or invite fortune, fengshui, and ancestor worship.

Protestantism is the historic and still dominant form of Western, Christian religious practice in Hong Kong, though today Catholics are not far behind compared to the total number of Protestants.

To date, most of the Catholics and Cultures site for Hong Kong focuses on the experience of migrant Filipino Catholics, who also provide cross-cultural insight into the character of Hong Kong Chinese life and Catholicism. Read more...

    Religious Affiliation
    Chart source: Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project, 2010
    Total Population
    7,428,887 1
    Urban
    100.00% 1
    Rural
    0.00% 1
    Immigrants as % of Population
    38.9% 2
    Homicides
    0.30 per 100,000 people (global median 6.9) 3
    Level of Public Corruption
    15 (1=lowest, 176=highest corruption) 4

    These statistics are derived from the Vatican's official publication, Statistical Yearbook of the Church 2020 (Vatican City: Librera Editrice Vaticana, 2022). The numbers may differ from data reported by other sources on this site.

    Baptized Catholics
    621,000
    Baptized Catholics as % of Total Population
    8.30
    Baptisms per Year (Under age 7)
    1,042
    Baptisms per Year (Over age 7)
    1,168
    First Communions per Year
    2,213
    Confirmations per Year
    1,368
    Students Enrolled in Catholic Primary Schools
    69,252
    Students Enrolled in Catholic Secondary Schools
    61,396
    Students Enrolled in Catholic Higher Education
    5,500
    Church Marriages per Year
    624
    Church Marriages in Which Both Spouses are Catholics
    90
    Priests
    289
    Women Religious (Nuns & Sisters)
    497
    Catholics per Priest
    2,149
    Parishes
    52
    Catholic Hospitals
    6
    Homes for Aged, Handicapped, Invalids
    15
    • 1 United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2018). World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision, Online Edition.
    • 2 United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Trends in International Migrant Stock: The 2015 revision.
    • 3 United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, Homicide Statistics 2015.
    • 4 Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index 2016.
    • 5 UNICEF, State of the World's Children, 2016.
    • 6 Statistical Yearbook of the Church 2020 (Vatican City: Librera Editrice Vaticana, 2022).
    • 7 World Economic Forum, The Global Gender Gap Report, 2016.