RELB 3559: Religion in Contemporary China

Images from the late 19th and early 20th centuries depicting art, temples, dignitaries, and lifeways. Browsable by region.

Images assembled by Anne S. Goodrich (1895–2005) in 1931, and donated to the C. V. Starr East Asian Library, Columbia University.
The images were either purchased to be burned immediately and serve as emissaries to heaven; or purchased to be displayed for a year while offering protection to the family in a variety of ways, before being burned. The images are further divided by display locations and by the deities they represent.

Communist posters, inculcating the Party's values and aspirations.

Postcards and photographs depicting houses of worship, art, and religious practice from the first half of the 20th century.

Stock photos from around the globe. Some of the most contemporary images. Royalty-free images may be used freely.

Photographs capturing lifestyles, street scenes, customs, religious observances and handicrafts, 1938-1946, by German photographer Hedda Morrison.

"This project aims to locate, digitalize, archive, and disseminate online photographs from the substantial holdings of images of modern China held mostly in private hands outside the country. These are often of even greater historic interest than might ordinarily be the case, as the destruction of materials in China through war and revolution in the twentieth century, and especially during the 1966-69 Cultural Revolution, means that there is a relative dearth today of accessible photographic records in China itself."

Photographs taken around the world by Protestant and Catholic missionaries, 1860-1960.

Images of China, 1908-1932. Includes "glass lantern slides" in color.

Partnership of researchers interested in the study of data on religion. Housed at Penn State University.

2012 report by the Pew Research Center. The report quotes anthropologist Tik-sang Liu: "for ordinary people in Hong Kong and Macau, 'there is no clear boundary between Buddhism, Daoism and local [folk] religious practice.'” Also, " though folk religions are pervasive in China, they typically do not appear in surveys in China because they are not one of the five religions officially recognized by the government."

May 2008 essay by the Pew Research Center for Religion and Public Life, a major organization studying religious statistics around the world.

Essay(s) by China Source, an evangelical group, focused primarily, but not exclusively, on Christians. Data is drawn from Pew, the CIA, and other sources.

Aug. 23, 2015 article from Business Insider, focused mainly on Christianity in china. Contrast the map, and the attitude towards Christianity displayed in this article with those in Wikiwand. Note the sources for the map and accompanying graph, and that they are different for each image.

Useful introduction with maps and sections for many different traditions practiced in China. Note the source data referenced in the footnotes.

Essay in Slate.com by Dr. Fengang Yang, Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Center of Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University. Dr. Yang's work is indexed in ATLA.

"Global network of social scientists studying changing values and their impact on social and political life," 1981-.