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Discover the world's most spiritual countries to visit in our Global Spirituality Index
Wayfairer Travel are excited to announce our newly released Global Spirituality Index.
We have analysed data on every country across the globe to find out the world’s most spiritual country, and taking the top spot in our Global Spirituality Index is Canada.
Spirituality is a concept which spans many levels, and defining a spiritual country is much greater than simply looking at those countries that have a large religious population.
While religion was of course a key consideration in our analysis - for which we covered religious diversity, religious freedom and religious tolerance as well as the religious population - we also considered factors including quality of life, wellness and mindfulness, and spiritual sights.
Read on below to find out the full results of our Global Spirituality Index and the methodology behind our analysis.
Results
Credit: Header image provided by Freepik
Canada was crowned as the most spiritual country in the world after ranking highly for quality of life and religious diversity as well as religious freedom, religious tolerance, spiritual sights and wellness.
Following Canada in the top 10 most spiritual countries are:
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Italy
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India
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Japan
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UK
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Mexico
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Australia
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Philippines
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USA
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Germany
For us here at Wayfairer, it was of particular interest to us to see which of our own destinations ranked highly on the Global Spirituality Index, and we were excited to see India placing in the top 5 countries in light of its high religious diversity and array of spiritual sights, and our new destination of Japan scoring very highly taking the third spot. We were also thrilled to see Thailand rank within the top 20 countries.
Methodology
To create our Global Spirituality Index, we analysed a variety of factors for every country in the world in order to take a holistic view of spirituality in every country. The elements we looked at included:
- Religious Diversity
- Religious Population
- Religious Freedom
- Religious Tolerance
- Spiritual Sights
- Wellness
- Quality of Life
Within each of these categories every country was awarded a score from 1-7 (7 being the highest). We then totalled each country’s scores across these categories to find their Global Spirituality Index Score, with a total of 49 being the highest score available.
The countries have then been ranked by their Global Spirituality Index Score to create the Global Spirituality Index.
Full data is available upon request.
Sources:
- http://www.pewforum.org/data
- https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/GWI_WellnessEconomyMonitor2017_FINALweb.pdf
- http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Fear-of-crime/Violent-hate-crime
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religions_by_country
- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/most-religious-countries-in-the-world/
- https://gostica.com/spiritual-lifestyle/top-10-spiritual-centers-with-strong-energy/
- https://www.pacsafe.com/blog/6-most-spiritual-places-on-earth.html
- http://consciouspanda.com/20-sacred-place-you-have-to-visit/
- https://torontosun.com/2013/11/04/worlds-most-spiritual-mystical-destinations/
- https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/quality-of-life-full-list
Data was not available for the following countries: Andorra, Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Bermuda, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Faroe Islands, French Guiana, Gabon, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Martinique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Montserrat, Mozambique, Myanmar, Niger, North Korea, Oman, Palestine, Puerto Rico, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent's & Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Tajikistan, The Gambia, Togo, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Turks & Caicos Islands, Uzbekistan, Virgin Islands (UK and US), Zambia
