Religion in Catalonia (2016)[1]
Religion in Catalonia is diversified. Since the Expulsion of the Jews and the Moriscos in the late 15th and early 17th centuries respectively, virtually all the population was Christian, specifically Catholic, but since the 1980s there has been a trend of rapid decline of Christianity, also driven since the 1980s by the religious authorities' association with Francoist Spain.[2] Nevertheless, according to the most recent study sponsored by the government of Catalonia, as of 2016, 61.9% of the Catalans identify as Christians, up from 56.5% in 2014,[3] of whom 58.0% Catholics, 3.0% Protestants and Evangelicals, 0.9% Orthodox Christians and 0.6% Jehovah's Witnesses. At the same time, 16.0% of the population identify as atheists, 11.9% as agnostics, 4.8% as Muslims, 1.3% as Buddhists, and a further 2.4% as being of other religions.[1]