Major Religions in China

1.Buddhism
Introduced to China around the 1st century A.D., it was widely spread and gradually became the most influential religion here. In China, Buddhism is divided into three branches by varied language families, that is, Chinese Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism and Pali Buddhism. Nowadays, there are totally 200,000 Buddhist monks and nuns and over 13,000 Buddhist temples that are open to the public, 33 Buddhist colleges and nearly 50 types of Buddhist publications.

Buddhist temples

A buddhism godness Guanyin

Pious monks

2.Taoism
Taoism is a typically Chinese religion, with a history of more than 1,800 years since the 2nd century A.D., advocating the worship of natural objects and ancestors; later, it developed into two major factions, namely, Quanzhen and Zhengyi Taoism, and was fairly influential among Han people. To account the exact number of Taoist believers is difficult for it doesn't like Buddhism, there are no formal ceremonies or specific regulations concerning the admission to Taoism. At present, there are more than 1,500 Taoist temples and over 2,500 Taoists.

Taoist temple

Taoist priest

3.Islam
Introduced to China in the 7th century A.D, Islam has approximately 18 million believers from Hui, Uygur, Tartar, Kirgiz, Kazakh, Ozbek, Dongxiang, Sala and Baoan nationalities in China, who are live in compact communities in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Gansu, Qinghai and Yunnan Provinces. It is calculated that there are more than 30,000 mosques and over 40 thousand imams or ahungs nowadays in China.

Mosque

Muslim

4.Catholicism
Catholicism was first introduced to China in the 7th century. Now, there are one hundred parishes, some five million believers, nearly five thousand cathedrals and places for religious activities and twelve theological seminaries.

5.Christianity
Introduced to China in early 19th century, now, there are about ten million Christian believers, 18 thousand priests and 12 churches or religious sites in China.More on Onlinechinatours.