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PEOPLE GROUP PROFILE

The Sinhalese of Maldives

The Sinhalese of Maldives, numbering approximately 3,900 people, are No Longer Unreached. They are a diaspora community of Sinhalese in theMaldives. They are an Diaspora people, in the South Asian Buddhist people cluster of the South Asian Peoples affinity bloc. Their primary religion is Buddhism - Theravada. They primarily speak Sinhala.

Sinhalese in Canada photo
Photo courtesy of Joshua Project. Photo Source: Copyrighted ©️ 2025 The Road Provides - Shutterstock Used with permission

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: South Asian Peoples
Country: Maldives
People Cluster: South Asian Buddhist
Primary Language(s): Sinhala (sin)
Primary Religion(s): Buddhism - Theravada
Population: 3,900
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): No Longer Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): 2% or Greater but Less than 5% Evangelical
People Group ID: PG006165
View on Joshua Project

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Pray for the Sinhalese of Maldives

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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Buddhism - Theravada
Religious Affiliation: Buddhism

%
Buddhism - Theravada Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Sinhala
Language Family: Indo-European

%
Sinhala Speakers

Media Resources in Sinhala:

Films:

Provided by the Jesus Film Project

View all resources

Bible Resources in Sinhala:

Provided by Faith Comes by Hearing

Or check out the Sinhala bible resources at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

View all resources

Next steps for the Sinhalese

The Sinhalese are Unengaged and Unreached, 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.

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

Next steps for the Sinhalese

The Sinhalese 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.

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

Next steps for the Sinhalese

The Sinhalese 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.

Empower local believers to begin praying for their own people
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Encourage local leaders to being leading church planting strategy and looking for Unreached and Unengaged groups nearby

Pray specifically for the Sinhalese of Maldives

For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.
readIsaiah 48:11

Pray that those who have been living for their own glory will turn to the One who is worthy of all praise and find their true identity in Him.

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
readLamentations 3:23-23

Pray that they will have hope in the Lord, knowing that His compassions never fails and that His mercies are new every morning.

And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us.
readActs 16:15

Pray that God will bring entire families and households to faith in Him and raise up servant-leaders from among them.

And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.
readMark 5:20

Pray that God will bring people who appear beyond hope to faith in Jesus and that they will then go and tell others of the marvelous things He has done.

Sinhalese (ROP3 - 109305) 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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