Islam by country · Americas
Islam in El Salvador: history and Muslim population data
Explore CoMPS research on the historical journey of Islam in El Salvador, alongside population data and an interactive timeline.
Open El Salvador in the interactive map
History of Islam in El Salvador
The Republic of El Salvador gained its independence from Spain in 1821. It has an area of 21,041 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 5.6.3. The first Muslims came from Palestine and the country elected its first Muslim president in 2019, his name is Nayib Bukele. As shown in Table 5.6.3, estimates for the Muslim population increased from none in 1908, to 100 in 1971, to 500 or 0.01% in 1992 and 2022.
Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will increase by 0.01 of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to remain less than 4,000 throughout this century.
Historical Muslim population dataset for El Salvador
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 | 766.0 | 0.000 | 0.00% |
| 2000 | 5,942 | 0.594 | 0.01% |
| 2100 | 4,317 | 3.89 | 0.09% |
For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.