Chinese traditional religion: In older world religion books the estimates of the total number of adherents of Confucianism range up to 350 million. Other books, including older versions of the Encyclopedia Britannica, have listed Chinese religionists under "Taoism," with adherent estimates up to about 200 million. But these figures are all based on counts of the same segment of Chinese people throughout the world -- people practicing what is, sociologically, more accurately called Chinese traditional religion, and often called Chinese folk religion. The word "traditional" is preferable to "folk" because "folk" might imply only the local, tribal customs and beliefs such as ancestor worship and nature beliefs. But "Chinese traditional religion" is meant to categorize the common religion of the majority Chinese culture: a combination of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, as well as the traditional non-scriptural/local practices and beliefs. For most religious Chinese who do not explicitly follow a different religion such as Islam or Christianity, these different ancient Chinese philosophies and traditions form a single, seamless composite religious culture and worldview.
Communist laws banning most religion and recent rapid changes introducing increasing openness make accurate estimates difficult to obtain. Recent figures for the number of "Chinese religionists" include 220 and 225 million.
In comparative religion texts Confucianism, Taoism and Chinese Buddhism are sometimes addressed in three separate chapters, and sometimes treated in one chapter as "Chinese religion." Even today there are very valid reasons for distinguishing Taoism from Confucianism, and distinguishing both from Chinese Buddhism and non-scriptural Chinese folk religion. For religious, philosophical, historical and scriptural purposes, distinguishing between these separate traditions is quite manageable. There are a number of people who identify themselves specifically as "Taoist" (In 1990-1991 there were 23,000 in the U.S., 1,720 in Canada, and 324 in New Zealand, for example.) There are a smaller number of people, including non-Chinese, who consciously practice a "pure" form of Taoist religion (often Tao-Te-Ching-based), unconcerned with Confucianism, Chinese folk practices, ancestor devotion, etc.
Fifty years ago religious Taoism was one of the largest, strongest institutions in China. Since the Cultural Revolution and the government's campaign to destroy non-Communist religion, Taoism lost, for the most part, the main mechanism through which it remained distinct from the larger Chinese religious environment: its large numbers of temples and Taoist clergy. Although Islam, Buddhism and Christianity have bounced back and even surpassed pre-Communist levels in China, Taoism has not. Today, despite the existence of some self-identified Taoists and pure Taoists in the West, Taoism is difficult to isolate as a large, independent religion from a statistical and sociological perspective. Hence, in this list, which is explicitly statistical and sociological in perspective, Taoism should be thought of as a major branch of Chinese traditional religion.
The situation is similar with Confucianism. In the latest edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica lists over 5 million Confucianists in its summary table of world religions. Their note explains that these are Confucianists outside of China, mostly in Korea. (The Encyclopedia lists "Chinese folk religion" separately.) It is true that recent census data show about five million Koreans name Confucianism as their religion, and there are even some Confucian schools and institutes in Korea. But the Adherents.com list leaves these Confucianists under the "Chinese traditional religion" grouping, rather than separating them based only on what country they live in.
