Buddhism is a small minority religion in The Netherlands, but it has shown rapid growth in recent years. In 1998 there were only 16,000 Buddhists in the Netherlands. In a 2004 estimate, 169,000 Dutch people identified their religion as Buddhist. In 2009 the number of Buddhists had risen all the way to 250,000. That is an almost 1,500% increase in just over ten years. This calculates to about 1.5% to 2.0% being Buddhist in the Netherlands.