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Religion and History in Chad

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Religion and History in Chad

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Chad sits on the religious fault line of the Sahel, its Muslim majority, about 55 per cent, concentrated in the arid north and its Christian population, roughly 41 per cent and split between Catholic and Protestant, concentrated in the wetter south. The two communities meet most sharply where mostly Muslim herders and mostly Christian farmers compete over the same land, a demographic and religious divide that maps onto Chad's underlying ecological one.

Chad marks both Christian and Islamic holidays, including Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, Easter Monday, All Saints Day and Christmas, as national public holidays, a calendar that treats the two majority traditions as equally established in practice rather than by any formal establishment in law. Violent extremism linked to religion has been largely confined to the Lake Chad basin in the country's far west, leaving most of Chad's interfaith relations comparatively calm despite the same demographic split that has produced conflict elsewhere in the region.

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Chad, Countries
Source Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020Pew Research Center
Sources
Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020
Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 2025View the Source
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