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• Area: 86,600 sq. km.
• Geography: Transcaucasian republic on the Caspian Sea, including a 5,632 sq. km. enclave, Nakhichevan, between Armenia and Turkey
• Capital: Baku, 1,800,000
• Urbanization: 55%

Azerbaijani=83%. Related to Turkish; 20 dialects. A further one million live in the other republics of the former USSR; 8,130,000 in Iran; 38,000 in Iraq.

• Indigenous minorities--3.9%
  • Lezgin 171,000 (including 4 languages and many dialects)
  • Avar 44,000
  • Talysh 21,000
  • Kurds 20,000
  • Tsakhur 13,000
  • Tat 10,000
• Foreign minorities--13.1%
  • Russian 390,000
  • Armenian 390,000
  • Ukrainian 32,000
  • Tatar 28,000
  • Turks 18,000
  • Georgian 14,000

There has been a rapid decrease of Russians and Armenians since 1990.

Official language: Azerbaijani
All languages: 16
Languages with Scriptures: 6 Bibles; 1 portion
Literacy: 98%

Oil and mineral wealth was heavily exploited by the Russians. There is a good economic potential if western expertise revitalizes the oil and mining industries. Azerbaijan is undergoing a rapid switch to a market economy. There is a lot of urban poverty, hampered by the cost of the undeclared war with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.

Long a vassal of surrounding empires, Azerbaijan became independent from the USSR in 1991. The old Communist leaders were replaced by nationalists in 1992. Pan-Turkism and an affinity with Turkey prevails rather than with Iran, and Muslim resurgence following the war with Christian Armenians are determining government policy. It was a massacre of Armenians in Baku in 1989 that provoked the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh to declare independence in 1990, culminating in warfare.

The nationalists are becoming more Islamic and anti-Christian, but officially there is religious freedom. Rising nationalism linked with Islamic revival is making many Azerbaijanis less receptive to the gospel, though in recent years urban youth have shown interest. The Christian population is almost entirely Russian and Armenian; many have now fled the country. Azerbaijani Christians in the country are only around 50 in number out of a possible worldwide total of 200. There are no Azerbaijani-speaking congregations.

Foreign Christians from outside the former USSR can find openings for work and witness. Among the unreached ethnic minorities, only the Udi (6,000) of the many Lezgin peoples are Christian; all the other groups are Muslim and without any Scriptures in their languages. The Talysh, Kurds, Tat, Avar, Tsakhur, and Tatars are all unreached. There are at least eight languages without any portion of the Word of God. The Jews speaking Kurdish and Tat are also untouched by the gospel.

information source: Johnstone, Patrick. Operation World. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1993.

For more information on tentmaking opportunities, please contact the Global Partnerships office.