Belarusian diaspora

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The Belarusian diaspora refers to emigrants from the territory of Belarus as well as to their descendants.

According to different researchers, there are between 2.5 and 3.5 million Belarusian descendants living outside the territory of the Republic of Belarus. This number includes descendants of economic emigrants from Belarus in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Second World War-era emigrants and the 1990s-present period of emigration. Another part of the Belarusian diaspora are people who migrated within the USSR before 1991 and who after its dissolution became inhabitants of other post-Soviet countries. A separate faction usually associated with the Belarusian diaspora are ethnic minorities in the borderlands of Belarus with Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia and Ukraine.

A separate group of emigrants from Belarus are Belarusian Jews who have established significant communities in the United States and Israel.

There is a tendency to underestimate the number of people identifying themselves as Belarusians according to official censuses.

The Minsk-based World Association of Belarusians is the international organization uniting people of Belarusian descent from around the world. The government of the short-lived Belarusian Democratic Republic has been in exile since 1919 and acts as a consolidating centre for many politically active Belarusians abroad, especially in North America and Western Europe.