Syrians

• Syrians
• سُورِيُّون
• Sūriyyūn

Flag of Syria
Total population
[note 1]
Regions with significant populations
Syria 24,229,544 (2024 estimate)[1]
Brazil	4,000,000[2]
Turkey	3,600,000[3][4]
Argentina	1,500,000[5][6]
Egypt	1,500,000[7]
Jordan	1,200,000[8]
Lebanon	1,129,624[9]
Germany	712,000[10] – 973,000[11] – 1,281,000[12][13]
Saudi Arabia	500,000[14] – 2,500,000[15]
Venezuela	400,000[16][17] – 1,000,000[18][19][20]
Iraq	295,000[21]
Sweden	263,899[22][23][24]
United Arab Emirates	250,000[25]
United States	281,331[26][27][28]
Chile	200,000[29]
Kuwait	150,000[30]
Netherlands	150,000[31][32]
France	80,000 [33][34][35][36][37]
Canada	77,050[38]
Sudan	60,000 – 250,000[39][40]
Australia	55,321[41]
Qatar	54,000[42]
Algeria	50,000[43] [44]
Austria	49,779[45]
Denmark	42,207[46]
Norway	36,026[47]
Ivory Coast	15,000[48]
Spain	11,188[49]
Guadeloupe (Overseas France)	10,000[50][51]
Finland	9,333[52]
United Kingdom	8,848 England & Wales[53] unknown in Scotland[54] and 2,000 in Northern Ireland.[55]
Italy	8,227 (Syrian born)[56]
Morocco	5,250[57]
Tunisia	5,000[58]
Ireland	3,922[59]
French Guiana (Overseas France)	3,120[60]
Mali	3,000[61]
Yemen	3,000[62]
Martinique (Overseas France)	1,000[63]
Languages
Levantine and Mesopotamian Arabic Aramaic (Syriac) and others
Religion
Mainly Islam (mostly Sunni Islam, minority Shi'as, Alawite) Minorities Christianity (mostly Antiochian Orthodox and Melkite Greek Catholics; a minority of Syriac Orthodox, Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic) Druze Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Lebanese, Palestinians, Jordanians and other Arabs

Syrians (Arabic: سوريون) are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of who have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. 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. By the seventh century, most of the inhabitants of the Levant spoke Aramaic. In the centuries after the Muslim conquest of the Levant in 634, Arabic gradually became the dominant language, but a minority of Syrians (particularly the Assyrians and Syriac-Arameans retained Aramaic (Syriac), which is still spoken in its Eastern and Western dialects.

The national name "Syrian" was originally an Indo-European corruption of Assyrian and applied to Assyria in northern Mesopotamia, however by antiquity it was used to denote the inhabitants of the Levant. Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant, Arab identity gradually became dominant among many Syrians, and the ethnonym "Syrian" was used mainly by Christians in Levant, Mesopotamia and Anatolia who spoke Syriac. In the 19th century, the name "Syrian" was revived amongst the Arabic speakers of the Levant. Following the establishment of the Arab Kingdom of Syria in 1920, the name "Syrian" began to spread amongst its Arabic speaking inhabitants. The term gained more importance during the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, becoming the accepted national name for the Arabic speakers of the Syrian Republic.

Most Arabic-speaking Syrians identify as Arabs and are described as such by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history. But they are, in fact, genetically a blend of the various Semitic-speaking groups indigenous to the region.^{[64][65][66][67]} There is no contradiction between being an Arab and a Syrian since the Syrian Arab identity is multi-layered and being Syrian complements being Arab. In addition to denoting Syrian Arabs, the term "Syrian" also refer to all Syrian citizens, regardless of their ethnic background. In 2018, Syria had an estimated population of 19.5 million, which includes, aside from the aforementioned majority, Kurds, Assyrians, Turkmen, Armenians and others.

Even before the Syrian Civil War, there was quite a large Syrian diaspora that had emigrated to North America (United States and Canada), European Union member states (including Sweden, France, and Germany), South America (mainly in Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and Chile), the West Indies,^[68] Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.^[69] Six million refugees of the Syrian Civil War also live outside Syria now, mostly in Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Germany as well as Sweden.

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