The Kurtop of Bhutan

The Kurtop of Bhutan, numbering approximately 19,000 people, are Unengaged and Unreached. They are an ethnolinguistic community of Bhutan. They are an Indigenous people in the Bhutanese people cluster of the Tibetan Peoples affinity bloc. Their primary language is Kurtokha and their primary religion is Tibetan Buddhism.

Photo by Google. (2025). Image generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash: Kurtop

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Tibetan Peoples
Country: Bhutan
People Cluster: Bhutanese
Primary Language(s): Kurtokha (xkz)
Primary Religion(s): Tibetan Buddhism
Population: 19,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): Unengaged and Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity
People Group ID: PG001230
View on Joshua Project

Pray for the Kurtop of Bhutan

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.

Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Tibetan Buddhism
Religious Affiliation: Buddhism

99%
%

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Kurtokha
Language Family: Sino-Tibetan

75%
%

Media Resources in Kurtokha:

Films:

No language code (ROL) found for this post.

Bible Resources in Kurtokha:

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Or check out the Kurtokha bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

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): Expanding Unreached People Group, (LPI: 2), 0.5% or Greater but Less than 2% 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 Kurtop:
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

SPI: Unreached yet Engaged

The Kurtop are Engaged yet Unreached, which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations but there are sustained efforts at establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.

Next steps for the Kurtop:
Continue prayer and fasting for this group
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Begin training up local leaders to lead and develop strategies to reach their own people

SPI: No longer Unreached

The Kurtop are No Longer Unreached, which means there are more than 2% evangelical Christian populations and there are churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice. There is still more to be done among them.

Next steps for the Kurtop:
Empower local believers to begin praying for their own people
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting
Encourage local leaders to being leading church planting strategy and looking for Unreached and Unengaged groups nearby

Pray specifically for the Kurtop of Bhutan

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
read1 John 4:10

Pray for those without the hope of Christ to understand the depth of God's love and the sacrifice He made for them.

The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them.
readPsalm 104:8

Pray that they will see the hand of God in the beauty and order of the natural world, and that they will worship Him as the Creator and Sustainer of all things.

And they all ate and were satisfied. And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.
readLuke 9:17

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will meditate on the stories of Jesus' miracles, be in awe of Him, and trust Him for everything they need.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.
readEphesians 6:13

Pray that God will send believers to the lost of this people group and that, as they share the gospel, they will take up the whole armor of God so that they can stand firm when trials come.

Kurteop Across Countries (ROP3 - 105463) reported in the following countries:

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 Definitions page.

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