Islam by country · Americas
Islam in Ecuador: history and Muslim population data
Explore CoMPS research on the historical journey of Islam in Ecuador, alongside population data and an interactive timeline.
Open Ecuador in the interactive map
History of Islam in Ecuador
The Republic of Ecuador has an area of 283,561 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 5.4.6. It was conquered by Spain in 1533, gained its independence in 1822 as part of the former Gran Columbia, and then emerged from the collapse of the latter in 1830. In 1908, the Muslim population consisted of twenty Chinese Muslims. This increased to 100 in 1974, with the arrival of Muslims from Syria Lebanon and Palestine. Muslims then increased to 500 or 0.01% in 1982, to 2,000 or 0.02% in 2005.
Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will increase by 0.01 of a percentage point every half century; then the Muslim population is expected to remain less than 10,000 throughout this century.
Historical Muslim population dataset for Ecuador
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 | 1,400 | 0.000 | 0.00% |
| 2000 | 12,518 | 0.501 | 0.00% |
| 2100 | 21,492 | 6.45 | 0.03% |
For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.