Spend any time in Europe and you’ll be immediately impressed by the diversity and complexity of European cities. The world has quite literally come to Europe. Trying to navigate these emerging cultures is an essential but daunting task for anyone wishing to introduce Christ to Europe’s immigrants.

 

Only about 6% of the population of the European Union’s 27 countries are foreign citizens. Nearly 56% of these come from within Europe itself: from Romania, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Germany. The foreign citizens have some main destinations; approximately “75 % of the foreigners in the EU-27 live in Germany, Spain, the UK, France and Ital. At the same time, citizens of these countries are among the most numerous EU foreigners living in another Member State” (Vasileva, 1).

[You can click the graphic above to look at it closer]

 

To put this 6% in perspective for those in the American context, the total population of foreign-born non-citizens of the United States is 7.19%. It could also be compared to the total population of Spanish speakers who “speak English less than ‘very well’”, which is 5.7% of the U.S. population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008).

 

Each of the 29 European country profiles discussed in this report address three questions,

1. From where do the immigrants come?

2. What percentage of the country’s population is made up of foreign citizens?

3. How do these new arrivals fit into the religious landscape of their host country?

 

The complete 91 page report can be downloaded from here (11MB)

Or see the attached PDF.

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Paul Dzubinski and Paul Haenze along with the help of Andreas Wolf have created an in-depth report on the major foreign populations in Europe and the people groups of north African mediterranean countries.

The purpose of this study is to enable missions strategists to evaluate the origin and location of migrant populations and people groups across Europe and North Africa with a view to developing initiatives to reach out to them for the sake of Christ. This report also looks at the religious makeup of Europe’s largest populations of non-nationals, referred to in the report as “Foreign Citizens”.