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The Northern Saami of Finland

The Northern Saami of Finland, numbering approximately 1,800 people, are No Longer Unreached. They are an indigenous Sámi people of northern Finland whose homeland lies within Sápmi across the Nordic north, forming the largest Sámi ethnolinguistic community and maintaining Northern Sámi cultural traditions and language. They mostly adhere to Protestantism and Northern Sami is their primary language.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite: Saami, North

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Eurasian Peoples
Country: Finland
People Cluster: Finno-Ugric, Saami
Primary Language(s): Northern Sami (sme)
Primary Religion(s): Protestantism
Population: 1,800
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): No Longer Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): 5% or Greater but Less than 10% Evangelical
People Group ID: PG048851
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Pray for the Northern Saami of Finland

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.

Pray Now!
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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Protestantism
Religious Affiliation: Christianity

74%
%
Protestantism Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Northern Sami
Language Family: Uralic

90%
%
Saami, North Speakers

Media Resources in Northern Sami:

Films:

No film resources are listed for this language.

Provided by the Jesus Film Project

View all resources

Bible Resources in Northern Sami:

No Bible resources are listed for this language.

Provided by Faith Comes by Hearing

Or check out the Northern Sami bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

View all resources

SPI: No longer Unreached

The Northern Saami 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 Northern Saami:
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 Northern Saami of Finland

You visit the earth and water it; you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide their grain, for so you have prepared it.
readPsalm 65:9

Give thanks for God's provision in nature, and pray that those who don't know Him will recognize His hand, desire to know their Creator, and hear the truth that Jesus is the solution to the world's greatest need.

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.
readIsaiah 30:21

As the lost in this people group seek to know the truth of who God is, pray that the Spirit of God will draw them to Himself and guide them in the way they should go.

I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me. I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.
readPsalm 3:5-6

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ and experience isolation or other persecution, God will sustain them and give them confidence and rest in Him.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
read1 Corinthians 15:10–11

Pray that God's people will preach the message of Jesus' death and resurrection and that it will spread among the lost through the selfless witness of believers.

Saami, Northern Across Countries (ROP3 - 107458) reported in the following countries:

Strategic Progress Index
All

3 people groups

PhotoPeople Group IDNameCountryPopulation ▲Strategic Progress IndexLanguageReligion
Northern SaamiPG048851Northern SaamiFinland1,800No Longer UnreachedNorthern SamiProtestantism
Northern SaamiPG000561Northern SaamiSweden6,100Unengaged and UnreachedNorthern SamiUnaffiliated
Northern SaamiPG000451Northern SaamiNorway44,500Engaged yet UnreachedNorthern SamiUnaffiliated

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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