Religion in Tibet

The main religion in Tibet has been Buddhism since its outspread in the 8th century AD. As of 2022 the historical region of Tibet (the areas inhabited by ethnic Tibetans) is mostly comprised in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) of China and partly in the Chinese provinces of Qinghai and Sichuan. Before the arrival of Buddhism, the main religion among Tibetans was an indigenous shamanic and animistic religion, Bon, which would later influence the formation of Tibetan Buddhism and still attracts the allegiance of a sizeable minority of Tibetans.

According to estimates from the International Religious Freedom Report of 2012, most Tibetans (who comprise 91% of the population of the Tibet Autonomous Region) are associated with Tibetan Buddhism, while a minority of 400,000 people (12.5% of the total population of the TAR) profess the native Bon religion. Other groups in Tibet practise folk religions which share the image of Confucius (Tibetan: Kongtse Trulgyi Gyalpo) with Chinese folk religion, though in a different light. The statistics do not cover the government-sponsored atheist proportion of the Tibetan population. According to some reports, the government of China has been promoting the Bon religion, linking it with Confucianism.

Four mosques operate in the Tibet Autonomous Region with approximately 4,000 to 5,000 Muslim adherents, although a 2010 Chinese survey found a higher Muslim proportion of 0.4%. In 2012, there was a Catholic church with 560 parishioners, which was located in the traditionally Catholic community of Yanjing in the east of the region; in 2018, it was noted that there are 700 Catholics in the region.