Demographics of Syria

Syria's estimated pre–Syrian Civil War 2011 population was 22 ±.5 million permanent inhabitants, which included 21,124,000 Syrians, as well as 1.3 million Iraqi refugees and over 500,000 Palestinian refugees. The war makes an accurate count of the Syrian population difficult, as the numbers of Syrian refugees, internally displaced Syrians and casualty numbers are in flux. The CIA World Factbook showed an estimated 20.4m people as of July 2021. Of the pre-war population, six million are refugees outside the country, seven million are internally displaced, three million live in rebel-held territory, and two million live in the Kurdish-ruled Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

Most modern-day Syrians are described as Levantine Arabs by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history. Genetically, Syrian Arabs are a variety of diverse Semitic-speaking groups indigenous to the region. With around 10% of the population, Kurds are the second biggest ethnic group in Syria, followed by Turkmen.