Islam by country · Americas
Islam in Belize: history and Muslim population data
Explore CoMPS research on the historical journey of Islam in Belize, alongside population data and an interactive timeline.
Open Belize in the interactive map
History of Islam in Belize
It gained its independence from the UK in 1981 when it also changed its name from British Honduras. It has an area of 22,966 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 5.6.1. According to census data as shown in Table 5.6.1, the Muslim population increased from none in 1871, to two in 1911, to twelve or 0.02% in 1946, to 110 or 0.08% in 1980, to 159 or 0.09% in 1991, to 266 or 0.1% in 2000, to 622 or 0.2% in 2010.
Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will increase by 0.05 of a percentage points per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to remain less than four thousands throughout this century, comprising 0.4% of the total population by 2050 and 0.7% by 2100.
Historical Muslim population dataset for Belize
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 | 37.00 | 0.000 | 0.00% |
| 2000 | 236.6 | 0.260 | 0.11% |
| 2100 | 563.5 | 3.66 | 0.65% |
For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.