Islam in Colombia: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Colombia

The Republic of Colombia has an area of 1,109,104 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 5.4.5. It was conquered by Spain in 1499, gained its independence in 1819 as part of the former Gran Columbia, and then emerged from the collapse of the latter in 1830. Gran Columbia used to include current Ecuador, Columbia, Panama, and Venezuela.

Between 1615 and 1700 Muslim Moriscos from Spain established a colony here and in Venezuela. However, they were obliterated by the Spaniards. Towards the end of the nineteenth century Muslims started emigrating from Syria and Lebanon. Estimates for the Muslim population increased from 500 or 0.01% in 1921 to 10,000 or 0.04% in 1973. According to World Values Survey (WVS), the percentage of Muslims was 0.03% in 2005 and 0.07% in 2012.

Thus, assuming that the Muslim population will increase by 0.02 of a percentage point every other decade; then the Muslim population is expected to remain around 0.1 million during the second half of this century, comprising 0.3% of the total population by 2100.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Colombia

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.