| THE first recorded cremation in Britain was in 1885. Mrs Jeanette Pickersgill was one of three people that year who were cremated, out of 596,000 deaths. Over time, cremations have increased as burial space has run out and costs have come down. By 2010 around three-quarters of the 566,000 Britons who died were cremated. This trend is seen in other rich countries too. The number of cremations in America rose from 47 in 1885 to over 1m in 2010, or 42% of all deaths. Within America there is much variation. Cremation is most popular in Nevada (72%) and Washington (71%), and least used in Bible-belt states such as Alabama (17%) and Mississippi (14%). Religion and culture are important factors. In Japan, most people identify with the indigenous religion of Shintoism or with Buddhism, which both favour that the dead be cremated. Close to 100% of all dead people are cremated in the country, the highest known rate according to the Cremation Society of Great Britain, which gathers data from around 40 countries. Rates are also high in densely populated (and tiny) places such as Hong Kong, where people store their families' ashes in lockers in multi-storey columbaria. | 於1885年在英國的第一個記錄火化。劉珍妮特皮克斯吉爾的三個人之一，今年被火化，出的596,000人死亡。隨著時間的推移，火葬的埋葬空間已用完，增加和成本都降下來。到2010年，大約四分之三的566,000英國人死亡被火化了。這種趨勢在其他富裕國家。美國火葬的人數上升至47在1885年，2010年超過100萬，所有死亡人數的42％。在美國有太大的變化。火葬是最流行的，在內華達州（72％）和華盛頓（71％），最少使用的聖經帶，如阿拉巴馬州（17％）和密西西比州（14％）。宗教和文化的重要因素。在日本，大多數人認同的本土宗教神道教或佛教，都贊成，死者火化。人都死了接近100％火化的國家，根據英國火葬協會，收集的數據來自約40個國家的已知的最高速度。價格也很高，在人口密集的（小）的地方，如香港，那裡的人將他們的家庭的骨灰在儲物櫃的多層骨灰龕。 |
Source: The Economist
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