About one in three males worldwide are circumcised, but the practice is far from evenly distributed. It is near-universal in Muslim-majority and Jewish countries, common in the United States and parts of Africa, and relatively rare across most of Europe, East Asia, and Latin America. Where circumcision happens, and why, depends heavily on religion, culture, and public health policy.
Muslim-Majority and Jewish Countries
Circumcision rates approach 100% in Muslim-majority nations across the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Southeast Asia. This includes countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. In Islam, circumcision is considered a practice of the prophets and is performed on boys typically between infancy and puberty, with the exact age varying by culture.
In Judaism, circumcision (brit milah) is a covenant obligation rooted in the Book of Genesis. Jewish boys are circumcised on the eighth day after birth. Israel has a near-universal circumcision rate. Jewish communities in the diaspora maintain the practice regardless of the country they live in.
The United States
The U.S. is the only Western country where non-religious circumcision became routine on a large scale. Rates vary significantly by region. CDC hospital discharge data through 2010 shows the Midwest had the highest rates, peaking at nearly 83% in 1998 before declining to about 69% by 2009. The Northeast held relatively steady between 61% and 70% over three decades. The South saw rates climb to about 66% in the mid-1990s before falling.
The West stands apart. Newborn circumcision there dropped 37% over the study period, falling from 64% in 1979 to about 40% by 2010, with a low of 31% in 2003. That decline is partly attributed to growing immigrant populations from Latin America and Asia, where circumcision is not traditional, and to the removal of Medicaid coverage for the procedure in several western states.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Many ethnic groups across West and East Africa have practiced circumcision for centuries as a coming-of-age ritual. Countries like Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, and Ethiopia have traditionally high rates for cultural reasons that predate both Islam and Christianity in the region.
Since 2007, a separate wave of circumcision has been driven by public health policy. The World Health Organization identified 15 priority countries in Eastern and Southern Africa where HIV rates were high and circumcision rates were low. Clinical trials had shown that circumcision reduces a man’s risk of acquiring HIV from heterosexual sex by roughly 60%. More than 27 million voluntary medical circumcision procedures have been performed in those priority countries since the program began, spanning nations like Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and South Africa.
Australia, Canada, and the UK
These three English-speaking countries adopted routine circumcision in the early to mid-20th century, largely for perceived hygiene benefits. All three have since seen significant declines. Australia’s rate sits around 27%, down from a majority of newborns in the 1950s. The UK’s rate is roughly 21%, with most of those circumcisions now performed for religious rather than medical reasons. Canada has followed a similar downward path, with national medical organizations there not recommending routine circumcision.
In all three countries, the shift happened as pediatric medical bodies moved away from recommending circumcision as routine. Without that institutional support, the cultural momentum faded within a generation or two.
Europe and East Asia
Most of continental Europe has very low circumcision rates. Ireland sits at about 1%, Italy at 3%, and Sweden at 5%. The circumcisions that do occur in these countries are overwhelmingly among Muslim and Jewish immigrant communities rather than the general population. Countries like Germany, France, and Spain follow a similar pattern, with low single-digit rates among non-immigrant populations.
East Asian countries, including China, Japan, and South Korea, also have historically low rates. South Korea is the notable exception: circumcision became widespread there after the Korean War, likely due to American military influence, and rates climbed to a majority of boys by the late 20th century before beginning to decline in recent years.
Latin America is largely non-circumcising as well, with the exception of communities that practice it for religious reasons.
Legal Challenges in Europe
Several European countries have seen organized pushback against non-medical circumcision of minors. In 2010, the Royal Dutch Medical Association declared that non-therapeutic circumcision of boys violates children’s rights to autonomy and physical integrity, and urged a policy of deterrence. In 2013, all Scandinavian children’s ombudsmen issued a joint statement that children should be allowed to choose for themselves. The Danish Medical Association called for an end to the practice in 2016, and a 2018 proposal to set a minimum age of 18 for non-therapeutic circumcision drew strong public support in Denmark but stalled after lobbying from religious groups.
Belgium’s federal bioethics committee ruled in 2017 that bodily integrity outweighs religious faith in this context. Iceland introduced a similar ban proposal in 2018, which also failed to advance. No European country has enacted an outright ban, but the trend toward discouraging the practice through medical and ethical channels continues.
Why Rates Vary So Much
The global patchwork comes down to three main drivers. Religion is the most powerful: Islam and Judaism together account for the vast majority of circumcisions worldwide. Cultural tradition plays a role in parts of Africa and among ethnic groups where circumcision marks a rite of passage. And medical policy shapes rates in countries like the U.S., where institutional recommendations (or the lack of them) influence parental decisions on a massive scale.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has stated that the health benefits of newborn circumcision outweigh the risks, citing lower rates of HIV, several other sexually transmitted infections, urinary tract infections, and penile cancer. Circumcised infants have roughly a 1 in 1,000 chance of a urinary tract infection in their first year, compared to about 1 in 100 for uncircumcised infants. However, the AAP stops short of recommending universal circumcision, leaving the decision to parents. Most other Western medical bodies take a similar or more cautious position, which is why rates outside the U.S. remain low in non-religious populations.