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PEOPLE GROUP PROFILE

The Tswa of South Africa

The Tswa of South Africa, numbering approximately 31,000 people, are Engaged yet Unreached. They are a southeastern Bantu ethnolinguistic group indigenous to southern Mozambique and southern Zimbabwe. They are an Diaspora people in the Bantu, Central-Southeast people cluster of the Sub-Saharan African Peoples affinity bloc. Their primary language is Tswa and their primary religion is Ethnoreligion.

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

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Sub-Saharan African Peoples
Country: South Africa
People Cluster: Bantu, Central-Southeast
Primary Language(s): Tswa (tsc)
Primary Religion(s): Ethnoreligion
Population: 31,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): Engaged yet Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Active CP Activity
People Group ID: PG015543
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Pray for the Tswa of South Africa

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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Ethnoreligion
Religious Affiliation: Ethnoreligion

—
%
Ethnoreligion Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Tswa
Language Family: Atlantic-Congo

100%
%
Tswa Speakers

Media Resources in Tswa:

Films:

Provided by the Jesus Film Project

View all resources

Bible Resources in Tswa:

Provided by Faith Comes by Hearing

Or check out the Tswa 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: 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): Expanding Unreached People Group, (LPI: 2), 0.5% to 2% 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 Tswa:
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 Tswa 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 Tswa:
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 Tswa 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 Tswa:
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 Tswa of South Africa

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
readJohn 3:19

Pray that God will have mercy on those who love the darkness they are walking in and turn from their sin to faith in Christ.

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.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.
readEphesians 2:4-5

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will remember God's mercy and grace and experience joy as they walk in new life with Christ.

Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.
readActs 17:29

Pray that God will send out laborers to tell people of the one true God and, as the good news is shared, bring about repentance and belief as they turn from idols and follow Jesus.

Tswa Across Countries (ROP3 - 110224) 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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