World Scouting Census Figures
Description
This article is from the Scouting FAQ, by Bill Nelson nelsonb@nospam.aztec.asu.edu, Soaring Golden Eagle eagle@rangernet.org and Alan Houser troop24@emf.net with numerous contributions by others.
World Scouting Census Figures
One indication (certainly not the only indication) of the strength of
a national Scouting organization might be the size of the per capita
percentage. Per capita percentage, for this purpose, is the World
Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) membership numbers divided
by the population of the country.
As of June 1998 there are 150 countries with WOSM recognized National Scout
Organizations. The countries that had population figures are listed below.
Membership: The membership which is shown in these countries
represents only the members (youth and adults) of the World
Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM), which in most countries
includes boys and girls. In some countries - mostly in Europe - the
national organization is larger than indicated here because it
includes girls who are members of the World Association of Girl Guides
and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS). The only organization included in the
numbers from the USA is the BSA, the GSUSA is not included in the
numbers on this page since they are part of WAGGGS not WOSM.
Sources: WOSM Membership figures from http://www.scout.org except for
BSA figures which are from BSA National's publication ProSpeak as of
12/31/98 (WOSM numbers were about 1 million more). BSA numbers do not
include Learning for Life which does not have WOSM members. Country
population figures are from: U.S. Bureau of the Census, International
Data Base and The World Factbook, 1997.
Ranking Country Membership Country Pop.Per Capita 1 Indonesia 9,896,357 212,941,810 4.65% 2 Philippines 2,888,265 77,725,862 3.72% 3 Kiribati 1,798 83,976 2.14% 4 Thailand 1,050,365 60,037,366 1.75% 5 United States 4,583,569 270,311,758 1.70% (BSA Only) 6 Dominica 1,100 65,777 1.67% 7 Maldives 4,543 290,211 1.57% 8 Liechtenstein 496 31,717 1.56% 9 Ireland 51,903 3,619,480 1.43% 10 Luxembourg 5,853 425,017 1.38% 11 Barbados 3,041 259,025 1.17% 12 Fiji 9,205 802,611 1.15% 13 Grenada 1,052 96,217 1.09% 14 United Kingdom 630,954 58,970,119 1.07% 15 Denmark 53,258 5,333,617 1.00% 16 New Zealand 33,673 3,625,388 0.93% 17 Belgium 92,691 10,174,922 0.91% 18 Canada 272,070 30,675,398 0.89% 19 Gambia 11,056 1,291,858 0.86% 20 Brunei Darussalam 2,617 315,292 0.83% 21 Sweden 71,033 8,886,738 0.80% 22 Hong Kong (P.R.C.) 53,049 6,706,965 0.79% (July 1998 est.) 23 San Marino 193 24,894 0.78% 24 Finland 38,132 5,149,242 0.74% 25 Qatar 5,096 697,126 0.73% 26 Malta 2,772 379,563 0.73% 27 Belize 1,643 230,160 0.71% 28 Cyprus 5,013 748,982 0.67% 29 Australia 124,424 18,613,087 0.67% 30 Iceland 1,692 271,033 0.62% 31 Bangladesh 784,054 127,567,002 0.61% 32 Suriname 2,601 427,980 0.61% 33 Kenya 168,021 28,337,071 0.59% 34 Bahamas 1,644 279,833 0.59% 35 Korea, Republic of 263,796 46,416,796 0.57% 36 St. Vincent/Grenadine 676 119,818 0.56% 37 Trinidad & Tobago 6,210 1,116,595 0.56% 38 Portugal 52,208 9,927,556 0.53% 39 Swaziland 4,994 966,462 0.52% 40 Poland 187,022 38,606,922 0.48% 41 Malaysia 93,449 20,932,901 0.45% 42 Tunisia 40,920 9,380,404 0.44% 43 Switzerland 31,553 7,260,357 0.43% 44 Norway 18,956 4,419,955 0.43% 45 Comoros 2,200 545,528 0.40% 46 Oman 9,495 2,363,591 0.40% 47 Netherlands 61,196 15,731,112 0.39% 48 Israel 21,920 5,643,966 0.39% 49 Slovenia 7,301 1,971,739 0.37% 50 Czech Republic 35,610 10,286,470 0.35% 51 Saint Lucia 516 152,335 0.34% 52 Taiwan 72,927 21,908,135 0.33% 53 Pakistan 441,677 135,135,195 0.33% 54 Botswana 4,660 1,448,454 0.32% 55 Togo 15,759 4,905,827 0.32% 56 Jordan 14,238 4,434,978 0.32% 57 Gabon 3,835 1,207,844 0.32% 58 Kuwait 6,061 1,913,285 0.32% 59 Singapore 10,392 3,490,356 0.30% 60 Bahrain 1,820 616,342 0.30% 61 Uganda 65,152 22,167,195 0.29% 62 Saudi Arabia 54,994 20,785,955 0.26% 63 Panama 7,111 2,735,943 0.26% 64 Mauritius 2,998 1,168,256 0.26% 65 United Arab Emirates 5,824 2,303,088 0.25% 66 Lebanon 8,450 3,505,794 0.24% 67 Chile 35,180 14,787,781 0.24% 68 Spain 89,256 39,133,996 0.23% 69 Libyan Arab Jamahiriy 12,902 5,690,727 0.23% 70 Central African Repl. 7,000 3,375,771 0.21% 71 Mongolia 5,311 2,578,530 0.21% 72 Italy 115,449 56,782,748 0.20% 73 Austria 16,455 8,133,087 0.20% 74 France 117,531 58,804,944 0.20% 75 Japan 244,827 125,931,533 0.19% 76 Hungary 19,809 10,208,127 0.19% 77 Monaco 62 32,035 0.19% 78 Benin 11,587 6,100,799 0.19% 79 Macedonia 3,500 2,009,387 0.17% 80 Germany 133,942 82,079,454 0.16% 81 Greece 17,378 10,662,138 0.16% 82 India 1,591,083 984,003,683 0.16% 83 Costa Rica 5,688 3,604,642 0.16% 84 Jamaica 4,133 2,634,678 0.16% 85 Sierra Leone 7,963 5,080,004 0.16% 86 Haiti 9,859 6,780,501 0.15% 87 Sri Lanka 25,288 18,933,558 0.13% 88 Tanzania 40,809 30,608,769 0.13% 89 Congo 62,842 49,000,511 0.13% 90 Burundi 6,661 5,537,387 0.12% 91 Yugoslavia 12,080 10,526,135 0.11% 92 Egypt 74,598 66,050,004 0.11% 93 Nepal 24,889 23,698,421 0.11% 94 Argentina 35,633 36,265,463 0.10% 95 Burkina Faso 10,165 11,266,393 0.09% 96 Bolivia 6,859 7,826,352 0.09% 97 Liberia 2,418 2,771,901 0.09% 98 Uruguay 2,841 3,284,841 0.09% 99 Namibia 1,378 1,622,328 0.08% 100 Slovakia 4,510 5,392,982 0.08% 101 Croatia 3,865 4,671,584 0.08% 102 Honduras 4,319 5,861,955 0.07% 103 El Salvador 4,180 5,752,067 0.07% 104 Estonia 1,016 1,421,335 0.07% 105 Mauritania 1,779 2,511,473 0.07% 106 Rwanda 5,479 7,956,172 0.07% 107 Belarus 7,050 10,409,050 0.07% 108 Syria 11,073 16,673,282 0.07% 109 Madagascar 8,857 14,462,509 0.06% 110 Senegal 5,882 9,723,149 0.06% 111 Mexico 59,531 98,552,776 0.06% 112 Guatemala 7,247 12,007,580 0.06% 113 Armenia 2035 3,421,775 0.06% 114 Papua New Guinea 2,599 4,599,785 0.06% 115 Iraq 12,000 21,722,287 0.06% 116 Angola 6,000 10,864,512 0.06% 117 Colombia 20,973 38,580,949 0.05% 118 Venezuela 12,371 22,803,409 0.05% 119 Nicaragua 2,298 4,583,379 0.05% 120 South Africa 21,323 42,834,520 0.05% 121 Peru 12,276 26,111,110 0.05% 122 Guinea 3,470 7,477,110 0.05% 123 Ecuador 5,536 12,336,572 0.04% 124 Zimbabwe 4,817 11,044,147 0.04% 125 Cameroon 6,535 15,029,433 0.04% 126 Morocco 12,304 29,114,497 0.04% 127 Nigeria 46,701 110,532,242 0.04% 128 Côte-d,Ivoire 6,436 15,446,231 0.04% 129 Lithuania 1,500 3,600,158 0.04% 130 Guyana 294 707,954 0.04% 131 Sudan 13,550 33,550,552 0.04% 132 Dominican Republic 3,200 7,998,766 0.04% 133 Yemen 6,481 16,387,963 0.04% 134 Chad 2,850 7,359,512 0.04% 135 Moldova, Republic of 1,540 4,457,729 0.03% 136 Brazil 58,493 169,806,557 0.03% 137 Latvia 801 2,385,396 0.03% 1 Algeria 10,000 30,480,793 0.03% 2 Zambia 3031 9,460,736 0.03% 3 Paraguay 1,240 5,291,020 0.02% 4 Romania 4,930 22,395,848 0.02% 5 Georgia 1,063 5,108,527 0.02% 6 Tajikistan 1,100 6,020,095 0.02% 7 Lesotho 371 2,089,829 0.02% 8 Turkey 11,252 64,566,511 0.02% 9 Ghana 3,186 18,497,206 0.02% 10 Niger 1,230 9,671,848 0.01%
NOTES:
The figures represent total membership numbers compared to total
population. The figures do not represent the total population of
'Scout age' youth in each country nor the populations within each
organization broken down by age, since the information is not
available to the author. This problem is compounded by the fact that
different organizations, some within the same country, have different
beginning and ending ages for their programs.
The reader should take into account that Scouting is run differently
in different countries. In the Philippines, for example, which shows
the second highest level of "market penetration" the scouting program
is run as an in-school program with paid scoutmasters. Compared to
that of Hong Kong, for example, where there is an all-volunteer
program without the support of the current government.
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