Top 10 Countries with the Largest Palestinian Diaspora, US Included

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the Palestinian population reached 14.5 million in mid-2023.

Approximately 3.3 million Palestinians (22.4%) lived in the West Bank, 2.2 million (15.4%) in the Gaza Strip, and 1.7 million (11.7%) in the former Palestinian territories now controlled and recognized as Israeli territory.

Meanwhile, in mid-2023, about 7.3 million Palestinians (50.4%) were part of the diaspora, living in other countries.

As of early November 2023, the PCBS had not yet released updated data on the distribution of the Palestinian diaspora.

However, according to data from the report *Palestinians Worldwide: A Demographic Study* (2020) published by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, the largest Palestinian diaspora population is in Jordan.

The study estimated that approximately 634,000 Palestinians lived in Jordan during the period 2015-2017.

There are also significant Palestinian populations in Syria, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Lebanon, the United States (US), Saudi Arabia, Chile, Egypt, the United Kingdom, and Qatar, with estimated populations as shown in the graph.

This report notes that the fate of the Palestinian diaspora is highly varied. Some live in other countries as refugees or immigrants with limited rights, while others have established families and obtained new citizenships.

"In Syria, Palestinians enjoy civil rights equal to Syrian citizens, but without any political rights, and they retain their Palestinian citizenship," the report states.

"A small number of Palestinians in Egypt have obtained Egyptian citizenship, and this number is expected to increase with regulations granting citizenship to those born from marriages between Egyptian and Palestinian citizens," it continues.

The Palestinian diaspora population in the US, [one of the countries that rejected a ceasefire between Israel and Palestine], has a long history there.

"The migration of Palestinians to the US is rooted in economically motivated emigration alongside Syrian and Lebanese merchants in 1893," the report states.