Islam by country · Americas
Islam in Argentina: history and Muslim population data
Explore CoMPS research on the historical journey of Islam in Argentina, alongside population data and an interactive timeline.
Open Argentina in the interactive map
History of Islam in Argentina
The Argentine Republic has an area of 2,789,400 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 5.4.1. The Spanish arrived here in 1516 and established the capital Buenos Aires in 1580. Argentina gained its independence from Spain in 1816. The first Muslims arrived here from Greater Syria in 1880, due to economic hardship and avoiding enlistment in the Ottoman army. Thus, census-based estimates of the Muslim population increased from none in 1869, when the first census was held, to 962 or 0.02% in 1895, to 9,445 or 0.12% in 1914, to 18,764 or 0.12% in 1947, then dropped to 14,262 or 0.08% in 1960. Large scale migration from Greater Syria lasted until 1955 and included Muslim, Jewish and Christian Arabs, with more of the latter. Thus, the vast majority of Muslims are descendants of this region.
Argentinean national censuses after 1960 did not include information about religious affiliation. However, according to World Values Survey (WVS), the percentage of Muslims was 0.20% in 1991, 0.09% in 1995 and 0.19% in 2013. Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will remain at 0.2% of the total population; then the Muslim population is expected to remain around 0.1 million throughout this century.
Historical Muslim population dataset for Argentina
The figures below are from the CoMPS historical dataset. Population values are expressed in thousands; 2100 is a modelled projection, not a present-day count.
| Year | Total population (thousands) | Muslim population (thousands) | Muslim share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1900 | 4,693 | 0.939 | 0.02% |
| 2000 | 36,864 | 73.73 | 0.20% |
| 2100 | 47,661 | 95.32 | 0.20% |
For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.