Definitions & FAQs
What is a People Group?
People Group is a manmade term, but it is the church’s best attempt to interpret what Scripture says about the variety of peoples in the world and God’s desires and plans for them.
IMB’s current definition of people group is the largest group through which the gospel can flow without encountering significant barriers of understanding and acceptance.
People groups can evolve over time. One or more of the following factors may define or assist in the identification of a particular people group: ethnicity, language, culture, religion, citizenship, geography, caste, clan, tribe, self-identity.
A key question in people group research is if disciples can be made of a people of a particular attribute combination (nation, tribe, people, language) by a people of another attribute combination without barriers of understanding or acceptance? If not, the Great Commission demands that the saved from the one people group accommodate and intentionally cross barriers to make disciples of the other people group.
What is a Place?
IMB defines a place as a geographic concentration of one or more people groups. In Scripture, places are named to identify the peoples within them.
What is an Unreached People Group (UPG)?
Unreached peoples are defined as people groups with less than 2% evangelical Christian populations. People groups come off and on this list as populations change, previous generations of Christians go to be with the Lord, or people come to saving faith. The list is designed to highlight, at any given point in time, possible priority people groups needing missionary effort.
What is an Unengaged People Group?
An unengaged people group is one where there are no known efforts focused on establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.
A people group becomes engaged when there are the following:
– Sustained commitment to sharing Christ and making disciples
– Work occurring in culturally appropriate and locally relevant ways
– Efforts focused on establishing self-sustaining churches.
What is an Unengaged Unreached People Group (UUPG)?
When both terms, Unengaged and Unreached, apply to people groups (called UUPGs), they are tracked in a separate list to highlight the overwhelming need to see disciples made and churches started among them. Sometimes lists of UUPGs published by various organizations differ. This is to be expected, as this term is man-defined, and organizations may view different activities within the missionary task as engagement. For example, some organizations view attempted evangelism or human needs ministries as engagement. IMB has chosen not to count a group as engaged until there are workers on the ground focused on establishing self-sustaining churches.
What is a Frontier People Group?
Frontier peoples are defined as people groups with less than 0.1% evangelical Christian populations. The list is designed to highlight, at any given point in time, priority people groups needing missionary effort.
What is a Pioneer People Group?
Pioneer peoples are defined as people groups with 0.1% to <0.5% evangelical Christian populations. Like Frontier and Unreached People Group lists, the pioneer people group list is designed to highlight, at any given point in time, possible priority people groups needing missionary effort.
PPLR – People, Place, Language, Religion
PPLR (pronounced “Peopler”) is the International Mission Board’s people group database. The People database contains over 7,000 kinship groups (peoples), 242 countries (places), over 5,000 languages and dialects, and 40 religious divisions. The database allows for over 347 billion possible combinations of people, place, language, and religion and can calculate the impact and engagement of various people group combinations across the globe.
What is a PGID or PEID?
A People Group ID (PGID) or a Population Entity ID (PEID) refers to a unique identifying number assigned to each people group by the IMB Global Research Department.
What is GAPP?
Gospel to All Peoples and Places – GAPP is a Kingdom impact tracking software tool distributed by Ta Ethni, LLC that allows ministries, networks, mission agencies, churches, and individuals to record and track their progress in a variety of Kingdom activities. Peoplegroups.org partners with GAPP to provide people group information and research within the application. For more information about GAPP, visit https://taethni.com/gapp.
What is GSEC?
GSEC stands for the Global Status of Evangelical Christianity. IMB maintains the Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC) scale. This scale from 0 to 6 combines the state of the Church (the presence of Christians and churches within a people group) and the availability of Scripture resources with that group’s current status of engagement (Unengaged or Engaged) and evangelical percentage of total population. This scale helps the Great Commission community identify people groups that currently have the least possibility of having disciples made and churches planted among them. IMB Global Research produces annual GSEC maps, which are distributed freely through https://peoplegroups.org/maps.
What is Weighted GSEC?
GSEC stands for the Global Status of Evangelical Christianity. IMB maintains the Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC) scale. This scale from 0 to 6 combines the state of the Church (the presence of Christians and churches within a people group) and the availability of Scripture resources with that group’s current status of engagement (Unengaged or Engaged) and evangelical percentage of total population. This scale helps the Great Commission community identify people groups that currently have the least possibility of having disciples made and churches planted among them. IMB Global Research produces annual GSEC maps, which are distributed freely through https://peoplegroups.org/maps.
The weighted Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC) gives another way to look at how “lost” a country is spiritually. The weighted GSEC score for a country is found by taking each people group’s GSEC score, multiplying it by that group’s population, adding up those numbers for all the groups in the country, and then dividing by the country’s total population. This gives an average score that reflects both the spiritual status and the size of each group.
What is LPI (Lostness Priority Index)?
The Lostness Priority Index is a scale that uses the evangelical Christian percentage to highlight possible priority people groups for both engagement (low LPI) and mobilization (high LPI). The scale is broken into seven categories as follows:
Frontier Unreached People Group – Less than or Equal to 0.1% Evangelical Christian Presence
Pioneer Unreached People Group – Greater than 0.1% and Less than or Equal to 0.5% Evangelical Christian Presence
Expanding Unreached People Group – Greater than 0.5% and Less than or Equal to 2% Evangelical Christian Presence
Minimally Reached People Group – Greater than 2% and Less than or Equal to 3% Evangelical Christian Presence
Marginally Reached People Group – Greater than 3% and Less than or Equal to 6% Evangelical Christian Presence
Moderately Reached People Group – Greater than 6% and Less than or Equal to 20% Evangelical Christian Presence
Significantly Reached People Group – Greater than 20% Evangelical Christian Presence
How do I use the Interactive Maps?
No single map can show the full picture of spiritual lostness. But when we use several maps together – such as SPI and GSEC maps by people group, maps showing the percentage and number of people dying daily, maps of engagement and evangelical presence, and maps like the weighted GSEC map – we get a fuller, more well-rounded view of lostness in a country and among its people groups. Learn how to use our interactive maps by clicking on each below:
The People Groups of the World (SPI) map
The People Groups of the World (GSEC) map
The Unengaged and Unreached Peoples map
Dying Daily without Christ (% of population) map
Dying Daily without Christ (population) map
Countries of the World (Affinities) map
Countries of the World (Weighted GSEC) map
Frontier Peoples (<0.1%) map
Pioneer Peoples (<0.5%) map
What is a GCC?
GCC stands for Great Commission Christian. A GCC (Great Commission Christian) is a term used to designate potential partners anywhere in the world that work for the fulfillment of the Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20) and share evangelical alignment.
HIS – Harvest Information Standards
The Harvest Information Standards is a cooperative effort of several organizations who share a desire to facilitate the task of taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to all the peoples of the world. HIS assists mission sending groups in fulfilling their portion of the task, by improving the sharing of information through the standardizing of categories and codes. (https://hisregistries.org/)
ROP – Registry of Peoples
The Registry of Peoples (ROP) (see https://hisregistries.org/rop/) provides a comprehensive set of codes for linking information from various major people group lists, including those found on Peoplegroups.org. Thus, the ROP is an essential tool for facilitating the exchange, comparison, and evaluation of people group information from disparate sources. We urge organizations to code their own people group information to ROP codes.
Where does this site’s information come from?
The Global Research Department (GRD) of the International Mission Board, SBC gathers and analyzes information collected through a global network of researchers. These researchers obtain information from missionaries, evangelical partners, mission agencies, and local networks. Much of the information comes directly from primary sources, although in some instances, secondary sources are used.
What other data standards are you using on your site?
In addition to data from the Harvest Information Standards for people groups, religions, and languages, our site utilizes several international standards organization (ISO) naming conventions. These standards are:
– Country Information: ISO-3166 (fields such as country name, ISO-alpha3, etc.)
I don’t see a people group on your site that I know exists. What should I do?
First, the people group might be listed under an alternate name. If you still can’t find the people group, send a note to info@peoplegroup.org or use our people group research tools. Please provide as much information as you can, along with links or copies of your sources. One or more global researchers will review the information you submit, evaluate it in consultation with other researchers, and modify the people group data as appropriate. In some cases, someone may contact you for additional information or clarification.
What do you mean by Evangelical Christian or church?
An Evangelical Christian is a person who believes that Jesus Christ is the sole source of salvation through faith in Him, has personal faith and conversion with regeneration by the Holy Spirit, recognizes the inspired Word of God as the only basis for faith and Christian living, and is committed to biblical preaching and evangelism that brings others to faith in Jesus Christ. A church that is considered Evangelical is characterized by these same beliefs and principles. Some churches that are not considered Evangelical in faith and practice may contain members who are Evangelical.
How do I download the people group data?
There are three ways to download the data:
1. Visit the tables on our Homepage or Explore People Groups of the World pages to filter and download a simplified table of People Groups. Press the “Download CSV” button after applying the filters to download the list.
2. Visit the Advanced People Group Dashboard to download a comprehensive CSV file filtered by an advanced set of variables. After setting the filters, click the ellipsis in the upper right corner of the people group card (Lower Left) to download the source data.
3. Visit the our Research Data page to download the complete unfiltered list.
Still have a question?
If you have any other queries, feel free to reach out to us. Our knowledgeable team is here to help!
Explore the People Groups of the World
Map and discover people groups and the status of the gospel among them. Filter, explore, and even download information.