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Demographics of Syria

Syria pop.jpg
Population density, 1993
Nationality noun: Syrian(s) adjective: Syrian
Official Arabic

In 2011, the Syrian population was estimated at roughly 23 million permanent inhabitants, including people with refugee status from Palestine and Iraq and are an overall indigenous Levantine people. While most modern-day Syrians are commonly described as Arabs by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history, they are, in fact, largely a blend of the various Semitic-speaking groups indigenous to the region.

There has been no Syrian census including a question about religion since 1960, these are thus the last official statistics available. In the next census of 1970, the religion statistics were no longer mentioned.: 92.1% Muslims(4,053,349) including 75% Sunnis, 11% Alawis, 3% Druzes; 7.8% Christians (344,621) and 0.1% Jews (4,860).

Arabic is the official, and most widely spoken, language. Arabic speakers make up 85% of the population (this includes some 500,000 Palestinians). Many educated Syrians also speak English and French. The Kurds, a majority of whom speak Kurdish, make up 9% of the population and live mostly in the northeast corner of Syria, as well in pockets all along the northern borders of Syria with Turkey, and demographically dominate the district of Afrin, west of Aleppo, though sizable Kurdish communities live in most major Syrian cities as well.Armenian and Turkmen are spoken among the small Armenian and Turkmen populations respectively. Aramaic is still spoken in two forms, the Syriac used by Assyrians and Western Neo-Aramaic used by a few inhabitants in the villages of Bakh'a, Jubb'adin and Ma'loula. 1,500 people of Greek descent lived in Syria. The majority of them were Syrian citizens.


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