Islam in Bhutan: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Bhutan

The Kingdom of Bhutan has an area of 38,394 sq km and its map ispresented in Figure 2.5.2. It did not come under Muslim control but wasinfluenced by the spread of Islam in India. While the British had someinfluence and occupied some Bhutanese land from 1865 to 1947, theynever occupied the whole country. As shown in Table 2.5.2, estimates forthe Muslim population increased from none in 1891, to 400 or 0.1% in1908 and according to ABM survey data, the percentage of Muslims was0.12% in 2005. Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims willincrease by 0.02 of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslimpopulation is expected to remain around 2,000 throughout the secondhalf of this century.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Bhutan

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.

For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.