these being Muslim. Circumcision is most prevalent in the Muslim world, parts of Southeast Asia, Africa, the United States, Israel, and South Korea. It is relatively rare in Europe, Latin America, parts of southern Africa, and most of Asia and Oceania. Prevalence is near-universal in the Middle East and Central Asia. The WHO states that “there is generally little non-religious circumcision in Asia, with the exceptions of the Republic of Korea and the Philippines”. The WHO presents a map of estimated prevalence in which the level is generally low (< 20%) across Europe,[ and Klavs et al. report findings that “support the notion that the prevalence is low in Europe”. In Latin America, prevalence is universally low. Estimates for individual countries include Spain and Colombia less than 2%;Brazil 7%; Taiwan 9%; Thailand 13%; and Australia 58.7%.

The WHO estimates prevalence in the United States and Canada at 75% and 30%, respectively. Prevalence in Africa varies from less than 20% in some southern African countries to near universal in North and West Africa.

Circumcision is (arguably) the world’s oldest planned surgical procedure, hypothesized to be over 15,000 years old, well pre-dating recorded history. There is no firm consensus as to how it came to be practiced worldwide. One theory is that it began in one geographic area and spread from there; another is that several different cultural groups began its practice independently. Peter Charles Remondino suggested that it began as a diminishment of full castration of a captured enemy: castration certainly would have been fatal, while some form