List of the largest Protestant denominations
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This is a list of the largest Protestant denominations. It aims to include sizable Protestant communions, federations, alliances, councils, fellowships, and other denominational organisations in the world and provides information regarding the membership thereof. The list is inevitably partial and generally based on claims by the denominations themselves. The numbers should therefore be considered approximate. Protestant bodies being considered in this article are divided into:
- transdenominational bodies with more than 50 million members
- international bodies with more than 10 million members
- national bodies with more than 5 million members
- non-national bodies with more than 5 million members
In 2010, the most numerous international bodies accounted for more than a half of worldwide Protestant population,[note 1] while the most numerous national bodies accounted for more than 200 of the world's 800 million Protestants.[note 2][1]
Transdenominational organisations are very large and often characterized by overlapping membership as opposed to international and national bodies. Some of the national groupings cannot be considered churches in mainstream Protestant ecclesiology even when they constitute a single denomination. A good example is the Protestant Church in Germany, which differs denominationally and encompasses Lutheran, Reformed and United subchurches.