Islam in Venezuela: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Venezuela

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has an area of 912,050 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 5.4.14. It was conquered by Spain in 1522, gained its independence in 1811 as part of the former Gran Colombia, and then emerged from the collapse of the latter in 1830. Gran Columbia used to include current Bolivia, Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela.

Between 1615 and 1700 Muslim Moriscos from Spain established a colony here and in Colombia. However, they were obliterated by the Spaniards. Towards the end of the nineteenth century Muslims started emigrating from Syria and Lebanon. A 1920 estimate put the number of Muslims at 500 or 0.02% of the total population. According to ISS survey, the percentage of Muslims increased to 0.07% in 2003. The Muslim population was estimated at 100,000 or 0.35% of the total population in 2020.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will continue to increase by 0.05 of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to reach 0.2 million or 0.5% by 2050 and 0.3 million or 0.8% by 2100.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Venezuela

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.