Total population | |
---|---|
c. 18 million in Syria, Syrian ancestry: +10 million Syrian refugees: +6 million |
|
Regions with significant populations | |
Syria | 17,185,170 |
Brazil | 4,011,480 |
Turkey | 2,764,500 |
Lebanon | 1,500,000 |
Jordan | 1,400,000 |
Argentina | 1,103,000 |
Venezuela | 1,015,632 |
Germany | 600,000 |
Iraq | 247,861 |
Sweden | 166,108 |
United States | 154,560 |
Greece | 88,204 |
Canada | 40,840 |
Macedonia | 40,000 |
Languages | |
Arabic (Syrian Arabic) Aramaic (Western Neo-Aramaic, Turoyo). |
|
Religion | |
Islam (mostly Sunni, and a minority of Shi'as and Alawites) Christianity (mostly Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic and a minority of Syriac Orthodox) Druze Judaism |
|
Related ethnic groups | |
Lebanese, Jordanians, Palestinians, Arabs, Jews, Assyrians |
c. 18 million in Syria, Syrian ancestry: +10 million
Syrians (Arabic: سوريون), also known as the Syrian people (Arabic: الشعب السوري ALA-LC: al-sha‘ab al-Sūrī; Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܝܢ) are the inhabitants of Syria, who share a common Levantine Semitic ancestry.
The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend of both indigenous elements and the foreign cultures that have come to rule the land and its people over the course of thousands of years.
The Syrian republic has a population of nearly 17 million as of 2014, in addition to 4 million Syrian refugees. The dominant racial group is the Syrian descendants of the old indigenous peoples who mixed with Arabs and identify themselves as such in addition to ethnic Aramean.
The Syrian diaspora consists of 15 million people of Syrian ancestry, who immigrated to North America (United States and Canada), European Union member states (including Sweden, France and Germany), South America (mainly in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela and Colombia), Australia, and Africa.
The name "Syrians" was employed by the Greeks and Romans to denote the inhabitants of Syria; however, they called themselves Arameans and Assyrians. The ethnic designation "Syrian" is derived from the word "Assyrian" and appeared in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Some argue that the discovery of the Çineköy inscription in 2000 seems to support the theory that the term Syria derives from Assyria.