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PEOPLE GROUP PROFILE

The Yonaguni of Japan

The Yonaguni of Japan, numbering approximately 1,500 people, are Unengaged and Unreached. They are a small indigenous Ryukyuan people of Japan, native to Yonaguni Island, the country’s westernmost inhabited island, located in Okinawa Prefecture near Taiwan. They mostly adhere to Shinbutsu-Shugo and Yonaguni is their primary language.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 3.1 Flash: Yonaguni

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: East Asian Peoples
Country: Japan
People Cluster: Japanese
Primary Language(s): Yonaguni (yoi)
Primary Religion(s): Shinbutsu-Shugo
Population: 1,500
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): Unengaged and Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): No Evangelicals, Churches or Resources
People Group ID: PG007580
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Pray for the Yonaguni of Japan

Join others around the world in praying for the lost to be saved, the gospel to advance, the global Church to grow, and for laborers to be sent out and sustained in the harvest.

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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Shinbutsu-Shugo
Religious Affiliation: Ethnoreligion

98%
%
Shinbutsu-Shugo Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Yonaguni
Language Family: Japonic

85%
%
Yonaguni Speakers

Media Resources in Yonaguni:

Films:

No film resources are listed for this language.

Provided by the Jesus Film Project

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Bible Resources in Yonaguni:

No Bible resources are listed for this language.

Provided by Faith Comes by Hearing

Or check out the Yonaguni bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

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Explore Lostness and Next Steps

Unengaged and Unreached

Strategic Priority Index (SPI): Unengaged and Unreached (SPI: 0), which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations among which there are no known efforts focused on establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.
Lostness Priority Index (LPI): Frontier Unreached People Group, (LPI: 0), < 0.1% Evangelical.
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): No Evangelicals, Churches or Resources (GSEC: 0), there are no evangelical Christians or churches among this people group and there is no access to evangelical print, audio, visual or human resources

Next steps for the Yonaguni:
Begin signifcant prayer and fasting for this group
Send cross-cultural teams to discover and research this people group
Begin gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group

Pray specifically for the Yonaguni of Japan

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
readMatthew 5:44-45

Pray for those who don't know Jesus to encounter believers who are kind and compassionate and that their imitation of Christ will serve as a testimony that attracts lost people to Jesus.

Greet also the church in their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia."
readRomans 16:5

Pray for houses to be meeting places for Christians and that God will advance the gospel and grow His Church through natural familial and community relationships.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
readPsalm 51:10

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will quickly repent when they sin and walk with clean hearts and right spirits as they grow in their relationship with the Lord.

He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him.
readJohn 1:7

Pray that God will raise up witnesses to testify about Jesus so that all might believe, knowing that He is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.

Yonaguni Across Countries (ROP3 - 111089) reported in the following countries:

Strategic Progress Index
All

1 people group

PhotoPeople Group IDNameCountryPopulation ▼Strategic Progress IndexLanguageReligion
YonaguniPG007580YonaguniJapan1,500Unengaged and UnreachedYonaguniShinbutsu-Shugo

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Data Standards section.

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