Islam by country · Americas
Islam in Bolivia: history and Muslim population data
Explore CoMPS research on the historical journey of Islam in Bolivia, alongside population data and an interactive timeline.
Open Bolivia in the interactive map
History of Islam in Bolivia
The Plurinational State of Bolivia has an area of 1,098,581 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 5.4.2. It was conquered by Spain in 1533 and gained its independence in 1825. The first Muslims came in the 1920s, from Palestine. However, the number of Muslims remains negligible at 0.01% of the total population. Estimates for their number increased from 500 in 1976, to 1,000 in 1992 and 2011, then increased to 1,500 or 0.01% in 2020.
Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will increase by 0.01 of a percentage point per every two decades; then the Muslim population is expected to remain less than 9,000 throughout this century.
Historical Muslim population dataset for Bolivia
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 | 1,696 | 0.000 | 0.00% |
| 2000 | 8,516 | 0.852 | 0.01% |
| 2100 | 18,869 | 9.43 | 0.05% |
For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.