Statistics
There are more than 5 million Bahá’ís in the world.
The Bahá’í Faith is established in virtually every country and in many dependent territories and overseas departments of countries. Bahá’ís reside in well over 100,000 localities. About 2,100 indigenous tribes, races, and ethnic groups are represented in the Bahá’í community.
There are currently 188 councils at the national level that oversee the work of communities. A network of over 300 training institutes, offering formal programs of Bahá’í education, span the globe.
Of the several thousand Bahá’í efforts in social and economic development, more than 900 are large-scale, sustained projects, including more than 600 schools and over 70 development agencies.
There are currently 14 Bahá’í Houses of Worship – in Australia, Cambodia, Chile, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Germany, India, Kenya, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Uganda, the United States, and Vanuatu. Plans are underway to build a national House of Worship in Canada. Local Houses of Worship are also being constructed in Bihar Sharif, India; Kanchanpur, Nepal; and Mwinilunga, Zambia. At the local level, meetings for worship are held regularly in Bahá’í centers and in the homes of believers all over the world.
The Bahá’í International Community has been registered with the United Nations as a non-governmental organization since 1948. It currently has consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social council (ECOSOC) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), as well as accreditation with the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and the United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI). The Bahá’í International Community collaborates with the UN and its specialized agencies, as well as member states, inter- and non-governmental organizations, academia, and practitioners. It has Representative Offices in Addis Ababa, Brussels, Cairo, Geneva, Jakarta, and New York.
Bahá’í writings and other literature have been translated into more than 800 languages.
Each year, around one million people visit the Bahá’í Shrine, terraces, and gardens on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel.
In Iran, where the Bahá’í Faith originated, there are now about 300,000 Bahá’ís, constituting the largest religious minority in that country.