Hawzah News Agency –There are approximately 3.6 million mosques around the world, with each mosque massing approximately 500 prayers due to the rising Muslim population.

The numbers were released by participants at an international conference held at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture — Ithra, Saudi Arabia.

The three-day event, which concludes on Thursday, discussed the historical evolution, meanings and functions of mosques.

According to different Islamic centres, the number of new mosques built in different countries does not balance the world's rising Muslim population.

According to Pew Research Center, the number of Muslims worldwide will grow to 2.76 billion, or 29.7 percent of world’s population by 2050.

One of those countries in need of a significant number of new mosques is France, where there are only 2300 mosques serving more than seven million Muslims.

The number of mosques in the United States increased by 31 percent to 2,769 between the years 2010 and 2020, driven by the steady growth of the Muslim population, says a study released last June.

"This represents a 31 percent increase from the 2010 count of 2,106,"

"Undoubtedly, the primary driving force for the increase of mosques is the steady expansion of the population of Muslims in America due to immigration and birth rate," said the report, "The American Mosque 2020: Growing and Evolving," released Wednesday.

The primary sponsors of the survey include the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Center on Muslim Philanthropy, Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) and the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB).