I also did a double take when I learned that they were Muslim-majority too. It flies in the face of a lot of assumptions.

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cdmckay 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Which assumptions are those?

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Froztnova 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Mostly just that it's easy for an American (or at least, myself circa several years ago) to assume that the overwhelmingly vast majority of Muslims live in middle eastern countries, and when I first learned that Indonesia was the world's largest Muslim majority country it proved that mental heuristic to be entirely inaccurate.

I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising though, I mean Christianity sure as hell got around too.

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flopsamjetsam 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Mostly just that it's easy for an American (or at least, myself circa several years ago) to assume that the overwhelmingly vast majority of Muslims live in middle eastern countries, and when I first learned that Indonesia was the world's largest Muslim majority country it proved that mental heuristic to be entirely inaccurate.

I live in Australia, and when I was growing up I thought the same, even though Indonesia are a very close neighbour of ours. Indonesia is featured quite a bit in our local news these days, and that together with lots of Aussie tourists in Indonesia, plus lots of Indonesian students studying here, has made us a little more knowledgeable about our neighbours.

	▲	bouncycastle 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Also, the Indonesia that most Australians only ever visit is Bali, which is mostly Hindu.

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elgenie 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The top five countries in the world by Muslim population are not in the Middle East/North Africa region: Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria.

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rafram 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Only 20% of the Muslims in the world live in the Middle East.

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deepspace 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's so weird. What do they teach in American schools? Apparently not even basic geography? The fact that Indonesia was Muslim is something I learned very early on - certainly before high school.

	▲	Froztnova an hour ago \| parent [-]
		TBH, without going into overmuch detail, I wouldn't generalize from my educational experience to the American educational system as a whole. I think it was better in a lot of ways, and worse in a few ways, than what most people would have received, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were some particular holes in my knowledge due to taking part in multiple curricula from different institutions.

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mmooss 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

India (also not Middle Eastern) has the largest population of Muslim people, but it is not 'majority Muslim'.

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aruggirello 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It seems things are improving for Christians in Indonesia in 2025 - or is the data missing?

https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/

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lawlessone 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah if i only went by TV news i'd come to the same general conclusion. And if i narrowed it down to just Fox i'd probably think it was the UK.

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lordnacho 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Ask someone in the West what the largest muslim country is.

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aprilthird2021 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You must not have known about Malaysia then either?

	▲	Froztnova 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Correct, it was around the time I learned how big Islam was in certain parts of Southeast Asia in general. It's just massively under-represented in news and popular culture and my historical/geographic education never really went into much detail on Asia.

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throwaway290 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Why? It's a big religion in the world and I heard it grows at 30% per year

	▲	rar00 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		typo? Rounding it up to 2 billion, 30% means 600 million per year
	▲	_DeadFred_ 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		How much of that is just because people aren't allowed to leave the religion though? My whole family would be considered Catholic if we still had those sorts of old thinking rules that Islam still has. Instead we have lots of people becoming Catholic and lots leaving balancing out.