Syrian diaspora

Syrian diaspora refers to Syrian people and their descendants who chose or were forced to emigrate from Syria and now reside in other countries as immigrants, or as refugees of the Syrian Civil War.

Syrian diaspora

Total population
From 8 to possibly 15 million[1]
Languages
Native: Syrian Arabic Also Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, French, English, German, Swedish [Syrian Kurdish dialect], Finnish, Turkish
Religion
Islam, Christianity, Druze, Syrian Jews

Map of the Syrian diaspora around the world.

  Syria

  +1,000,000

  +100,000

  +10,000

  +1,000

Two Syrian women in NYC, 1916.

Syrian baklava maker in Little Syria in 1916.

Syrian immigrant children on Washington Street in Lower Manhattan in 1916.

Syrian folk group in Brazil, displaying the flag of Ba'athist Syria.

The estimated number of people of Syrian descent residing outside Syria ranges from 8 to 13 million.^[2]: 1 The UNHCR reports that 4.9 million global refugees in 2015 were Syrian nationals.^[3] The Syrian nationality law does not grant diaspora Syrians an automatic right of return to Syria, and under the controversial 2018 Absentees Law, the Assad government confiscated property of millions of Syrians.^[4][5]

Populations

See also: Refugees of the Syrian civil war § Total displacement of Syrians per country

Country	Estimate	Upper Estimate	Region	Country article in English Wikipedia
+
Brazil	1,000,000 according to a research conducted by IBGE in 2008, covering only the states of Amazonas, Paraíba, São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, Mato Grosso and Distrito Federal, 0.9% of caucasoid Brazilian respondents said they had family origins in the Middle East[6]	4,000,000 people of Syrian ancestry (according to Brazilian government)[7]	South America	Syrian Brazilian
Turkey	3,611,834 registered (December 2018)[8]		Europe Asia	Syrians in Turkey
Lebanon	950,334 registered (December 2018)[9]		Middle East	Syrians in Lebanon
Jordan	671,148 registered (December 2018)[10]	1,400,000 estimated (August 2015)[11]	Middle East	Syrians in Jordan
Germany	1,281,000 (2023)[12]		European Union	Syrians in Germany
Argentina	1,500,000	2,000,000	South America	Syrian Argentine
Saudi Arabia	449,314 (2022 census) [13]	449,000	Middle East	Syrians in Saudi Arabia
Iraq	310‚000 estimated (December 2024)[14]		Middle East	Syrian in iraq
Sudan	250,000 estimated (2017)[15]		Africa
United Arab Emirates	>250,000 estimated (2016)[16][17]		Middle East	Syrians in the United Arab Emirates
Sweden	250 000 (2021)[18][19][20][21][22][23]		European Union	Syrians in Sweden
United States	187,331 (by ancestry, 2016 U.S Census Bureau) [24]		North America	Syrian American
Egypt	132,553 estimated (December 2018)[25]		North Africa and Middle East
Kuwait	120,000 estimated (2015)[26]		Middle East	Syrians in Kuwait
Canada	98,250 (by ancestry, 2021 Census)[27]		North America	Syrian Canadian
Greece	88,204 (2015)[28]		European Union	Syrians in Greece
France	80,000 (2024)[29][30][31][32][33]		European Union	Syrians in France
Austria	68,000 (2019)[34][35]		European Union	Syrians in Austria
Algeria	50,000[36][37][38][39] – 84,700[40]		North Africa and Middle East	Syrians in Algeria
Australia	29,096 (Syrian-born resident, 2021)[41]		Oceania	Syrian Australians
Israel	24,800 (2019)[42]	115,000	Middle East
Venezuela	15,632 (Syrian-born resident, 2015)[43]	1,000,000 Venezuelans of Syrian descent[44][45][46][47]	Latin America	Syrian Venezuelan
Ivory Coast	15,000 (Syrian-born, 2024)[48]		Sub-Saharan Africa	Syrians in Ivory Coast
Finland	10,403 (2022)[49]		European Union	Syrians in Finland
Guadeloupe (Overseas France)	10,000[50][51]		Caribbean
United Kingdom	8,848 England & Wales[52] unknown in Scotland[53] and 2,000 in Northern Ireland.[54] (2019)[55]		Europe	Syrians in the United Kingdom

See also

• Lebanese diaspora
• List of Syrian refugee camps in Jordan
• Little Syria, Manhattan
• Refugees of the Syrian Civil War
• Refugees of the Syrian Civil War in Jordan
• Syrians in Lebanon
• Syrian refugee camps