Islam by country · Oceania
Islam in Papua New Guinea: history and Muslim population data
Explore CoMPS research on the historical journey of Islam in Papua New Guinea, alongside population data and an interactive timeline.
Open Papua New Guinea in the interactive map
History of Islam in Papua New Guinea
The Independent State of Papua New Guinea was occupied by the British in 1885, then transferred to Australia in 1902, and gained independence from Australia in 1975. Most of the country is situated in the eastern third of the island of New Guinea, which it shares with Indonesia and is the second largest Island in the world after Greenland. It has an area of 462,840 sq km, comprising the eastern half of the Island of New Guinea which is 85% of the country’s area, in addition to hundreds of islands surrounding this part, the largest of which are New Britain (35,144 sq km), Bougainville (9,318 sq km), New Ireland (7,404 sq km), Manus (2,100 sq km), Fergusson (1,437 sq km), New Hanover (1,186 sq km) and Normanby (1,000 sq km).
Islam entered here through Indonesia, but the number of Muslims remains small. In 1890, there were no Muslims in PNG. In 1907, the Muslim population consisted of 525 individuals; all are Malay except twelve Chinese, two Tagales, and one Indian. This constituted 0.08% of the total population. It decreased to 500 or 0.06% in 1921, all Malays, but dropped to 120 or 0.00% by 1971. The 1990 census was the first to include Islam in the list of religions inquired. Hence, according to census data, the Muslim population increased from 440 or 0.01% in 1990 to 756 or 0.01% in 2000, to 1,352 or 0.02% in 2011. The last increase is due large number of conversions by locals. 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 increase to 9,000 or 0.06% by 2050 and 22,000 or 0.12% by 2100.
Historical Muslim population dataset for Papua New Guinea
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 | 587.0 | 0.235 | 0.04% |
| 2000 | 5,414 | 0.541 | 0.01% |
| 2100 | 18,542 | 22.25 | 0.12% |
For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.