The Western Buddhist Order at 40, part IV: The Order’s geographical spread

Continuing this week’s theme of celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Western Buddhist Order by looking at some of its features and characteristics, part IV looks at the Order’s geographical spread and the way this has changed over the past ten years.

The Western Buddhist Order is an international Order with members in 27 countries: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Turkey, UK, USA, and Venezuela at the last count. It is still, however, based primarily in Britain and India; the chart shows the approximate geographical distribution of the Order both in 2006 and ten years ago in 1997.

Since 1997 the Order has doubled in size, but not all regions have increased at the same rate. It can be seen from the piechart that Europe, the USA, and Australasia have all increased their share of the Order overall. India, however, has seen the least increase, shrinking as a consequence from 30% to 24% of the Order. Strikingly, it is clear that more Order Members still live in each of the British cities of Cambridge, Manchester, London, and Birmingham than any other country except India…

Photographs of many FWBO Centres and groups are on-line on the FWBO Photos website, this hosts some 2,300 photos from all around the FWBO and TBMSG.

Tomorrow – the changing age profile of the Order.