Religion

The population of Northern Ireland was estimated as being 1,759,000 on 10 December 2008. In the 2001 census, 45.57% of the population identified as belonging to Protestant or other non-Roman Catholic denominations (20.69% Presbyterian, 15.30% Church of Ireland, 3.51% Methodist, 6.07% other Christian/Christian related), 40.26% identified as Roman Catholic, 0.30% identified with non-Christian religions and 13.88% identified with no religion. In terms of community background, 53.1% of the Northern Irish population came from a Protestant background, 43.8% came from a Catholic background, 0.4% from non-Christian backgrounds and 2.7% non-religious backgrounds. The population is forecast to pass the 1.8 million mark by 2011.