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PEOPLE GROUP PROFILE

The Sapuan of Laos

The Sapuan of Laos, numbering approximately 6,000 people, are Unengaged and Unreached. They are described as a small Austroasiatic people essentially confined to the single village of Ban Sapuan north of Attapeu in southern Laos, one of some three dozen upland Lao Theung communities, bilingual in Sapuan and Lao They are an Indigenous people, with Sapuan as their ethnic/kinship group and are in the Mon-Khmer people cluster of the Southeast Asian Peoples. They mostly adhere to Animism and Sapuan is their primary language.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash: Sapuan

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Southeast Asian Peoples
Country: Laos
People Cluster: Mon-Khmer
Primary Language(s): Sapuan (spu)
Primary Religion(s): Animism
Population: 6,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): Unengaged and Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity
People Group ID: PG009174
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Pray for the Sapuan of Laos

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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Animism
Religious Affiliation: Ethnoreligion

100%
%
Animism Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Sapuan
Language Family: Austroasiatic

100%
%
Sapuan Speakers

Media Resources in Sapuan:

Films:

No film resources are listed for this language.

Provided by the Jesus Film Project

View all resources

Bible Resources in Sapuan:

No Bible resources are listed for this language.

Provided by Faith Comes by Hearing

Or check out the Sapuan bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

View all resources

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): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity (GSEC: 1), this people group is less than 2% evangelical, some evangelical resources are available, but there has been no active church planting among them within the past two years

Next steps for the Sapuan:
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 Sapuan of Laos

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.

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
read1 Timothy 2:5-6

Pray for the truth about Jesus Christ to spread among the lost so that many will accept His ransom for their sin and experience freedom in a relationship with Him.

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
readActs 2:42

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will devote themselves to God's Word, to fellowship with each other, and to prayer.

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
read1 John 1:5

Pray that God will raise up believers who can share the gospel with people who don't know the good news of Jesus, that God is light and in him, there is no darkness at all.

Sapuan Across Countries (ROP3 - 108706) reported in the following countries:

Strategic Progress Index
All

1 people group

PhotoPeople Group IDNameCountryPopulation ▼Strategic Progress IndexLanguageReligion
SapuanPG009174SapuanLaos6,000Unengaged and UnreachedSapuanAnimism

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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