Islam by country · Americas
Islam in Peru: history and Muslim population data
Explore CoMPS research on the historical journey of Islam in Peru, alongside population data and an interactive timeline.
Open Peru in the interactive map
History of Islam in Peru
The Republic of Peru has an area of 1,285,216 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 5.4.11. It was conquered by Spain in 1533 and gained its independence in 1821. The number of Muslims remained negligible afterwards at 0.00% of the total population, and per census data increased from 109 in 1940 to 196 in 1961. Later estimates increased to 500 in 1972, to 1,000 in 1981, to 3,000 or 0.01% in 1993. According to the World Values Survey (WVS), the percentage of Muslims was 0.08% in 2012.
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 50,000 or 0.1% by 2050 and 70,000 or 0.2% by 2100.
Historical Muslim population dataset for Peru
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 | 3,648 | 0.000 | 0.00% |
| 2000 | 26,462 | 10.58 | 0.04% |
| 2100 | 42,170 | 71.69 | 0.17% |
For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.