The sultanate of Brunei is located in the north of the island of Borneo and is divided into two separate areas by the Limbang corridor, part of the Malaysian state of Sarawak. Both parts have a coastline on the South China Sea and otherwise are completely surrounded by Sarawak. The unusual geography is explained by history: in earlier centuries the authority of the Sultan of Brunei extended over a much wider area, which shrank to its current proportions during the colonial era, becoming a British protectorate in 1888. When the Federation of Malaysia was formed in 1963, Brunei was the only state that voted to remain under British rule. It was only in 1984 that it became independent from Britain. The same family has been in power for more than six centuries. The current ruler, Hassanal Bolkiah, was crowned sultan in 1968 and became prime minister at the time of independence. He is an absolute monarch and no criticism of the government is permitted. In 1991 he introduced the ideology of Malay Muslim Monarchy, under which the monarch is regarded as defender of the faith. One of the world's wealthiest individuals, he remains the dominant figure in national life.

Brunei continues to have much in common with Malaysia, including the fact that the majority of the population are Malay in ethnicity and Muslim in religion. In terms of both size – 5,765 square kilometres – and population – well under half a million – it is one of the smallest countries in Southeast Asia.

This volume combines two United Nations regions, Eastern and Southeastern Asia. Together these span more than 16 million square kilometres. This is only 11% of the total land area of the planet, yet it is home to more than 2.3 billion people, almost one-third of the world's population. Within this terrain are found breath-taking contrasts in such matters as wealth and poverty or war and peace. In East Asia, we have the economic juggernaut that is China. Japan has been a member of the Group of 7, the countries with the most advanced economies, since it was known as the Group of 5 in 1973. Yet right beside South Korea, the world's eleventh largest economy by nominal gross domestic product (GDP) (as of 2018), is North Korea, where, according to a 2017 United Nations study, more than half of children under two years old and half of pregnant and breastfeeding women are malnourished. In Southeast Asia, the Credit Suisse Research Institute reports that in 2018 Singapore was home to more than 180,000 millionaires. According to US News and World Report, as of 2018, Hong Kong had 93 billionaires, ranking it seventh in the world. By contrast, in 2017, the entire GPD of Timor-Leste was less than US$3 billion.

In the 2018 Global Peace Index, this part of the world had two countries in the top 10 (Singapore at number 8 and Japan at number 9). By contrast, the Philippines ranked 137th out of 163. Security analysts predict that in this and nearby countries, fundamentalist violence will increase before the situation gets better.

Editorial Note

The Edinburgh Companions to Global Christianity use ‘Independents’ as an umbrella term to cover those Christians who belong to churches that are not affiliated to the Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican or Protestant streams of Christianity. While some of these are stand-alone local congregations, most belong to organised networks.

This category can be applied to the East and Southeast Asia region but is problematic, since relatively few Christians self-identify as ‘Independent’. House churches in China fall within this category and, in this region, constitute by far the largest component within it. Yet Christians who belong to house churches are eager to advance their Protestant credentials, lest they be considered deviant or extreme. Likewise, in much of the rest of the region the minority status of Christianity means that even churches that choose to operate independently of historic denominations are concerned to demonstrate that they belong within the mainstream of the Christian religion.

Hence it is quite unusual for a church to identify as Independent. An exception is found in the Philippines, where the early twentieth century saw churches breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church in order to espouse the cause of independence for their nation. Some of these churches have departed from Christian orthodoxy – for example, on the doctrine of the Trinity or the divinity of Christ – but continue to understand themselves as part of Christianity. In this respect, they are similar to movements or churches like the Jehovah's Witnesses and Latter-day Saints, which have set themselves apart from historic Christian belief.

While a number of compendia have recently been produced on the study of worldwide Christianity, the distinctive quality of this series arises from its examination of global Christianity through a combination of reliable demographic information and original interpretative essays by indigenous scholars and practitioners. This approach was successfully pioneered by the Atlas of Global Christianity 1910–2010, published by Edinburgh University Press on the occasion of the centenary of the epoch-making Edinburgh 1910 World Missionary Conference.

Using the same methodology, the Edinburgh Companions to Global Christianity take the analysis to a deeper level of detail and explore the context of the twenty-first century. The series considers the presence of Christianity on a continent-by-continent basis worldwide. Covering every country in the world, it maps patterns of growth and/or decline and examines current trends. The aim of the series is to comprehensively map worldwide Christianity and to describe it in its entirety. Country-specific studies are offered, all the major Christian traditions are analysed and current regional and continental trends are examined.

Each volume is devoted to a continent or sub-continent, following the United Nations classifications. Through a combination of maps, tables, charts and graphs, each of the successive volumes presents a comprehensive demographic analysis of Christianity in the relevant area. Commentary and interpretation are provided by essays on key topics, each written by an expert in the field, normally an indigenous scholar. By the use of these various tools each volume provides an accurate, objective and incisive analysis of the presence of Christian faith in the relevant area.

The table that begins overleaf provides a quick-reference, country-by-country listing for Christianity and its major traditions for all the countries that appear in this volume. These statistics are found in the World Christian Database (see Methodology and Sources) and all figures relate to 1970 and 2020. Small numbers are left unrounded to distinguish known small populations from zero but do not represent precise estimates.

The columns are as follows:

• • Country (name of country in English)

• • Region in which country is located

• • Total population of country (United Nations estimate, 1970, 2020) and total numbers and percentage of population in each tradition

• • Percentage mean annual growth rate, 1970–2020.

• The last page of the table presents regional totals.