List of countries by cremation rate

Cremation still taboo in Zimbabwe. The city council of Bulawayo the second largest city in Zimbabwe planned mandatory cremation for people who die under 25. However this plan cancelled after many protests from Pentecostal christian groups.

The rate of cremation is about 20% in Cape Town who has got an important white population but is more much lower in other parts of the country.[1]

There is a crematorium in Accra the capital of Ghana but the cremation rate is low. Pentecostal christians( the biggest religion group in the country) are officially against cremation.

Nairobi has the only crematorium in Kenya.Since Kenya is a christian majority country the beliefs for cremation depends from the church.

Cremation is legal in Lagos state.

China cremates more people each year than any other country, reporting 4,534,000 cremations out of 9,348,453 deaths (a 48.50% rate) in 2008.[2] The cremation rate was 45.6% for 2014 according to Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs.[3]

Almost all people adhering to Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism cremate their dead, which makes India one of the countries with highest rate of cremation. In India different Indigenous communities follow different funeral practices Further in Hinduism also burial is being practiced for children and Spiritual persons. The rate of cremation is around 84%.

Japan has one of the highest cremation rates in the world with the country reporting a cremation rate of 99.97% in 2014.[4]

Almost everyone adhering to Hinduism and Buddhism cremates their dead, which makes Nepal one of the countries with the highest rate of cremation. The rate of cremation is around 95%.

Given its tiny land area, Singapore has one of the highest cremation rates in the world reporting a cremation rate of 80.54% in 2018.[5]

South Korea had the cremation rate of 90.5% in 2020. It is increasing as people born later are more likely to be cremated. About 94 percent of those under the age of 60 were cremated, with 99 percent of those in their 20s being cremated in 2014.[6]

According to information from Ministry of Interior, the cremation rate was 92.47% in 2013, 144,162 of the 155,908 deaths that year. [7]

The cremation rate in the United Kingdom has been increasing steadily with the national average rate rising from 34.70% in 1960 to 77.05% in 2017.[8]

Cremation rates in the Nordic countries vary from Norway's 36% to Finland's 51%,[9] Sweden's 70% and Denmark's 76%. In all countries the cremation rate in large towns is generally between 70% and 90%.

The first cremation in the Netherlands was performed in 1914. In the hundred years since the cremation rate has risen to 63% in 2014.[10]

Cremation remains a minority practice in rural France where burial places are available, but is increasingly common in urban areas. In 1979 just 1% of funerals involved cremation: in 2012 it was 32%, rising to 45% in Paris.[11]

Cremation has been on the increase in Ireland in the last decade. This is largely due to both the expense of burial plots and their (lack of) availability. Today, almost 20% of deaths in Ireland involve cremation.[12] There are five crematoria in Ireland, three of which are located in Dublin (Glasnevin (the first facility of its type in Ireland, established in 1982), Newland’s Cross, Harold’s Cross), one in Cavan[13] and one in Cork. However, access to these cremation facilities is not restricted to people living in Dublin or Cork. Anyone may arrange for a cremation to take place in any of these crematoria.[14] Another crematorium opened in Shannon in 2017.

Cremations are booming in Spain: in 2006, just 16% of deaths involved cremation, but by 2016 that figure had risen to 36%.[15] Around half of all deceased are cremated in Barcelona.[16] In 2019, the total number of deaths was 417,000, of which 44% were cremated.

Cremation recently became more popular than burial in Hungary: in 1996, the cremation rate was 27%,[17] and in 2016, it was around 60%, with 70–90% in Budapest.[18]

The first crematorium in Russia was built in Vladivostok in 1917, primarily for the cremations of Japanese people, who had a big population in this city. Later, the Donskoy crematorium was built in Moscow in 1927 and remained the only crematorium in the USSR until 1973, when the Piskarevskiy crematorium in Leningrad was commissioned. In 2019, there are 26 crematoriums in Russia.

The highest rate of cremations was in Moscow and Saint-Petersburg at about 40% of all deaths. In other large cities it is 20-25%, while the total cremation rate in Russia is about 10%.[19] The reason for such a low prevalence of cremation is the mentality of Russians, which is influenced by religious beliefs - the Russian Orthodox Church has a negative attitude towards cremation, while Islam categorically prohibits it.

The cremation rate in Canada has been increasing steadily with the national average rate rising from 5.9% in 1970 to 68.4% in 2009.[20][21] The rates vary greatly among the provinces with the most recent (1999) province level statistics showing that British Columbia had the highest rate at 74% while Prince Edward Island had the lowest rate at 8.5%.[22]

The projected Canadian rates for 2010:

The cremation rate in the United States has been increasing steadily with the national average rate rising from 3.56% in 1960 to 53.1% in 2018 and projections from the Cremation Association of North America forecasting a rate of 59.4% in 2023.[24][25] The rates vary considerably among the states with the highest rates (over 70%) being reported in the Western United States with the lowest rates (under 30%) being reported in the Southern United States.[26]

A survey by the Funeral and Memorial Information Council found that Americans increasingly choose cremation for the cost savings. In 1990, 19 percent reported this motivation; in 2010, one-third reported this motivation.[27]

The following table lists the 2014 cremation rate for each state and the District of Columbia including the national average.

2006 US cremation rates

The National Funeral Directors Association had a slightly different national cremation rate in the United States, reporting a 2016 rate of 50.2 percent, with this expecting to increase to 63.8 percent by 2025 and 78.8 percent in 2035.[28]

The Cremation Society (UK) states that the cremation rate in Australia in 2018 was slightly over 69% of all deaths."The Cremation Society, International Statistics". Retrieved 16 February 2020.

New Zealand's rate is slightly higher than Australia's, with a cremation rate in 2018 of 75% of all deaths."The Cremation Society, International Statistics". Retrieved 16 February 2020.