The Salar of China

The Salar of China, numbering approximately 170,000 people, are Engaged yet Unreached. They are described as an ethnolinguistic community of China They are an Indigenous people, with Salar as their ethnic/kinship group and are in the Turkic people cluster of the Turkic Peoples. Their primary religion is Sunni Islam. They primarily speak Salar.

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

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Turkic Peoples
Country: China
People Cluster: Turkic
Primary Language(s): Salar (slr)
Primary Religion(s): Sunni Islam
Population: 170,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): Engaged yet Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Active CP Activity
People Group ID: PG007375
View on Joshua Project

Pray for the Salar of China

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: Sunni Islam
Religious Affiliation: Islam

99%
%
Sunni Islam Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Salar
Language Family: Turkic

70%
%
Salar Speakers

Media Resources in Salar:

Films:

No entries found for: Salar(slr). Help build some!

Bible Resources in Salar:

Or check out the Salar bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

Explore Lostness and Next Steps

Unengaged and Unreached

Strategic Priority Index (SPI): Unengaged and Unreached (SPI: 1), 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 Active 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 Salar:
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 Salar 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 Salar:
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 Salar 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 Salar:
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 Salar of China

But he said, "What is impossible with man is possible with God."
readLuke 18:27

Praise God that He is the God of impossible things and that He is able to save even those who seem beyond hope.

More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
readRomans 5:11

Pray for the gospel to advance and for more people to be brought into God's family through the reconciliation Jesus offers them.

The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
readLamentations 3:25

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will trust in the goodness of the Lord as they wait on Him to answer their cries for help.

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
readIsaiah 58:7

As believers cross cultures to share the good news of Christ, pray that God will sustain them and grow their faith as He gives them the compassion necessary to minister well to those in need.

Salar Across Countries (ROP3 - 108543) 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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