The faith numbers roughly eight million people distributed across more than two hundred countries and dependent territories, which relative to its size makes it among the most geographically dispersed religions in the world — a fact frequently cited and worth qualifying, since dispersion is not the same as depth, and many national communities are small. The largest populations are in India, which alone may account for a fifth or more, followed by the United States, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Vietnam and Bolivia; the Middle East, where the faith began, now holds a small fraction. The distribution was produced deliberately: Shoghi Effendi directed a series of systematic expansion plans from the 1930s onward, the largest being the Ten Year Crusade of 1953–63, which sent pioneers to specific named territories with targets attached. Growth since has been concentrated in the global South, and the modern equivalent is the sequence of Five Year Plans directed by the Universal House of Justice, organised around clusters and the institute process.