Where Daily Prayer is Most Common

Despite secularization progressing, there are still some world regions where daily prayer is practiced by an overwhelming majority of the population. According to a compilation of Pew Research Center surveys conducted between 2008 and 2017, daily prayer was most common in West Africa and parts of the Middle East as well as in Indonesia and Paraguay. Upwards of 80 percent of people saying the engaged in daily prayer in Nigeria, Iran, Mali, Niger, Chad, Algeria, Morocco, Afghanistan and Iraq, among others.

Answers in the 60 to 80 percent range were most common in East Africa, India and Pakistan as well as parts of Latin America. 75 percent of Indians said prayer was their daily ritual, compared with 61 percent of Brazilians. Some of the highest shares of daily prayer in Europe were measured among Spaniards and Greeks at 23 and 30 percent, respectively. In many Western European nations, the share of those praying daily was only around 10 percent or even lower.

The U.S. is an outlier in the ranking. U.S. Americans reported daily prayer at a much higher rate than the populations of other wealthy countries. The U.S.'s rate of 55 percent of the population engaging in daily prayer is higher than in Mexico (40 percent) and more than double the rate of Canada (25 percent).