Tasitolu | The Vatican says some 600,000 people have attended Pope Francis' Mass in East Timor, or nearly half the country's population.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni cited crowd estimates by local organisers of the number of people in the Tasitolu park and surrounding areas, the same site as St. John Paul II's historic Mass in 1989.

While some faithful from Indonesia's West Timor travelled for the Mass, the number would approximate around half of East Timor's population of 1.3 million, making it the largest crowd ever to attend a papal event, in terms of the proportion of the population.

Francis is visiting East Timor as part of his trip through Asia.