Words by

Catharine Fulton

Iceland is the 9th most atheist country according to an opinion poll conducted by WIN-Gallup International.
The poll posed the question “irrespective of whether you attend a place of worship or not, would you say you are a religious person, not a religious person or a convinced atheist?”
In responding to the question, Icelanders proved themselves to be 57% religious, 31% ‘not religious,’ and 10% atheist. The remaining 2% didn’t know how to respond. In 2005 74% of Icelanders polled had labeled themselves as ‘religious’, meaning there has been a drop of 17 percentage points in religiosity in the 7-year span between polls (the most recent polling took place in 2012).
The full top-10 list for most atheist countries is:

1. China (47% convinced atheist)
2. Japan (31% convinced atheist)
3. Czech Republic (30% convinced atheist)
4. France (29% convinced atheist)
5. South Korea 15% convinced atheist)
6. Germany (15% convinced atheist)
7. Netherlands (14% convinced atheist)
8. Austria (10% convinced atheist)
9. Iceland (10% convinced atheist)
10. Australia (10% convinced atheist)
11. Ireland (10% convinced atheist)

WIN-Gallup International polled 51,927 people in 40 countries worldwide. The global tally found that 59% of those surveyed identified as ‘religious’, while 23% were ‘not religious,’ and 13% were ‘convinced atheist.’ The Icelandic sample size was 852 people.