I may be being dumb (quite possibly in fact) but the numbers don't add up. Taking the most extreme example, Japan, in 2008 16.4% of the population were theists and 8.7% non-believers. What about the other 74.9% of the population? Are they "Don't knows" or just "Told the questioner to piss offs"? A cursory glance suggests none of them add up to 100% and I think it would help to include the remainders for clarity.

That aside, East Germany is an anomaly...and not just because it hadn't existed as a separate entity for 8 years in 1998. The numbers of non-believers there vastly outstrip both West Germany and Russia, thereby suggesting that it is neither their German-ness nor their former communism that is the cause.

Overall I find it quite disappointing. I'd have expected higher numbers of non-believers among some of the European states. But a bit of local pride for the UK registering once of the biggest rises between the two dates.