Syrians

• Syrians
• سُورِيُّون
• Sūriyyīn

Total population
[note 1]
Regions with significant populations
Syria	23,022,427 (2023 estimate)[1]
Brazil	4,011,480[2]
Turkey	3,600,000[3][4]
Argentina	1,500,000[5][6]
Germany	1,225,000[7]
Jordan	1,200,000[8]
Lebanon	1,129,624[9]
Venezuela	1,000,000[10][11][12]
Saudi Arabia	500,000[13]
United States	281,331[14][15][16]
United Arab Emirates	250,000[17]
Iraq	243,000[18]
Sweden	240,717[19][20]
Chile	200,000[21]
Kuwait	150,000[22]
Egypt	114,000 [23]
Canada	77,050[24]
Sudan	60,000 – 250,000[25][26]
Qatar	54,000[27]
Algeria	50,000[28]
Austria	49,779[29]
France	44,000[30][31][32]
Denmark	42,207[33]
Norway	36,026[34]
Spain	11,188[35]
Finland	9,333[36]
United Kingdom	8,848 England & Wales[37] unknown in Scotland[38] and 2,000 in Northern Ireland.[39]
Italy	8,227 (Syrian born)[40]
Morocco	5,250[41]
Ireland	3,000[42]
Niger	3,000[citation needed]
Mali	3,000[43]
Yemen	3,000[44]
Languages
Levantine and Mesopotamian Arabic Syriac and others
Religion
Mainly Islam (mostly Sunni Islam, minority Shi'as, Alawite) 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, who have Arabic, especially its Levantine dialect, 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 became the dominant language, but a minority of Syrians retained Aramaic, which is still spoken in its Syriac and Western dialects.

The national name "Syrian" was used in antiquity to denote the inhabitants of the Levant. Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant, Arab identity became dominant and the ethnonym "Syrian" was used mainly by Christians 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. 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, Turks, Armenians and others.

Before the Syrian Civil War, there was quite a large Syrian diaspora that had immigrated 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,^[45] Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.^[46] Six million refugees of the Syrian Civil War also live outside Syria now, mostly in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon.

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