Assessment of religious identity is a relevant theme investigated in most international surveys where researchers can find extensive topical modules on religiosity. Religious denominations represent a challenge due to their changing nature and diversity depending on country and historical period. The drawback lies in the difficulty to align information when it comes to cross-national and time-points comparisons. The present database covers 211 countries and was translated in 80 languages. In the first step we tracked down the known denominations in each country by means of international surveys (e.g., EVS, ESS, WVS, PEW research center) and available national statistics.

Then these denominations are classified in a comprehensive scheme that includes major religious denominations and smaller branches. The religious classification was implemented thanks to the work previously carried out by the OnBound project (old and new boundaries: national identities and religion) at GESIS that provides an extensive set of unique codes to associate to each denomination. 

Next, we translated as many religious denominations as possible in every language. The resulting database will be framed within a coding scheme in the perspective of making it accessible and easy to replicate for existing and future research venues.