• AFFINITY BLOC: TURKIC PEOPLES


QUICK FACTS:

People groups: 174

Population: 204,355,525

Unreached people groups: 173

UPG population: 204,204,525

Unengaged UPGs: 86

UUPG population: 9,298,625

Number of clusters: 9

Number of countries: 45

 

Overview: For most of the last 800 years, Turkic peoples have been among the least accessible to the Gospel--chiefly as a result of the intertwining political and religious opposition to anything perceived as Western, including Christianity. The collapse of the Muslim Ottoman Empire in 1920 and the Marxist Soviet Union in 1991 created new opportunities to reach some of these peoples. The nine people clusters that comprise the Turkic Peoples affinity bloc are overwhelmingly Muslim. Less than 1% of all Turkic people profess Christian faith, and most of those who call themselves Christian are nominally Orthodox--their ancestors pressured by Russian authorities to become Christian.

  -- Patrick Johnstone, The Future of the Global Church, pp. 221-222

People clusters: Altaic; Azerbaijani; Kazakh; Kyrgyz; Turkic; Turkmen; Ural-Siberian; Uyghur; Uzbek

Countries where they are found: Afghanistan; Australia; Austria; Azerbaijan; Belgium; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Bulgaria; Canada; China; Cyprus; Denmark; Egypt; France; Georgia; Germany; Greece; India; Iran; Iraq; Japan; Jordan; Kazakhstan; Kosovo; Kyrgyzstan; Lebanon; Moldova; Mongolia; Netherlands; North Macedonia; Norway; Pakistan; Romania; Russian Federation; Saudi Arabia; Sweden; Switzerland; Syria; Tajikistan; Türkiye; Turkmenistan; Ukraine; United Arab Emirates; United Kingdom; United States; Uzbekistan


People groups: 174

Population: 204,355,525

Unreached people groups: 173

UPG population: 204,204,525

Unengaged UPGs: 86

UUPG population: 9,298,625

Number of clusters: 9

Number of countries: 45