PARIS, France: A major new demographic study from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life pegs the world's Muslim population at 1.57 billion, meaning that nearly 1 in 4 people in the world practice Islam. Previous estimates had put the number at anywhere from 1 billion to 1.8 billion.

Americans tend to associate Islam with the Arab Street and Middle East politics, but the report billed as the most comprehensive of its kind finds that just 20 percent of the global Muslim population resides in the Middle East and North Africa. Sixty percent of Muslims live in Asia.

The Middle East-North Africa region, meanwhile, is home to the highest proportion of Muslim majority nations. "More than half of the 20 countries and territories in that region have populations that are approximately 95 percent Muslim or greater," according to the new report.

Other interesting tidbits:

—Two thirds of the global population lives in these 10 countries: Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Egypt, Nigeria, Iran, Turkey, Algeria, Morocco.

—More than 300 million Muslims, or one-fifth of the world's Muslim population, live in countries where Islam is not the majority religion. These minority Muslim populations are often quite large. India, for example, has the third-largest population of Muslims worldwide. China has more Muslims than Syria, Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon, while Russia is home to more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined and Ethiopia has nearly as many Muslims as Afghanistan.

—According to the report 80% of the world's Shiite population lives in four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq.