Ethnic groups in Syria


is a multi-ethnic country, made up of several ethnic groups.
File:Syria_Ethno-religious_composition..jpg|thumb|Ethno-religious makeup of Syria, 1976.
Map from Joseph Holliday, , Institute for the Study of War

Ethnicity, religion and national/ideological identities

Ethnicity and religion are intertwined in Syria as in other countries in the region, but there are also nondenominational, supraethnic and suprareligious political identities, like Syrian nationalism.

Counting the ethnic or religious groups

Since the 1960 census there has been no counting of Syrians by religion, and there has never been any official counting by ethnicity or language. In the 1943 and 1953 censuses the various denominations were counted separately, e.g. for every Christian denomination. In 1960 Syrian Christians were counted as a whole but Muslims were still counted separately between Sunnis and Alawis.

Syrians and "foreigners"

Before the Syrian Civil War began in 2011, the Syrian population was estimated at roughly 23 million permanent inhabitants, including between 1,000,000 and 1,500,000 Iraqi refugees of various ethnicities and creeds, 580,000 Palestinian refugees, mostly Sunni Arabs, and an unknown number of Lebanese or Lebanese-Syrian dual citizens, mostly Shia Arabs and Christian Arabs of various subcreeds. Some Palestinian and Lebanese families have been living in Syria for generations. More than four million refugees, Syrians as well as non-Syrians, have left the country during the course of the civil war.

Ethnoreligious groups

Most Syrians speak Arabic, most are Sunni Muslims, but there are no accurate numbers or percentages of the various "majority" and "minority" groups. Sunni Arab Syrians could be anywhere between 70% and 79% as non-Arabic-speaking groups are usually estimated at about 4%, non-Sunni Muslim groups at less than 10% and Arabic-speaking Christians are 10%, but these are only indicative percentages.