MOSCOW, October 8 (RIA Novosti) - Nearly one in four people worldwide are Muslim, a U.S. think-tank has said in a report.

According to the Washington-based Pew Research Center, there are 1.57 billion Muslims in the world. They account for some 23% of the global population of 6.8 billion.

"Overall, the number is higher than I expected," said senior researcher Brian Grim.

Some 60% of Muslims live in Asia and 20% in the Middle East and North Africa. About 300 million Muslims live in countries where Islam is not the main religion. According to the data, Russia has more Muslims than Jordan and Libya put together.

The Pew researchers spent nearly three years analyzing data from national censuses and surveys of 232 countries and territories, Grim said.

According to the 2005 World Religions Database, there are about 2.25 billion Christians in the world.