Since World War I, the Assyrian diaspora has steadily increased so that there are now more Assyrians living in western and eastern Europe, North America and Australia, than in the Middle East. At the turn of the century, the Christian population in the Ottoman Empire had numbered about 5,000,000. When the Turks' massacres ended in 1923, about 20,000 Greeks, 10,000 Armenians and 30,000 Assyrians remained. The Civil War in Lebanon, the coming into power of the Islamic republic of Iran, the Ba'thist dictatorship in Iraq, and the present-day unrest in Iraq pushed even more Assyrians on the roads of exile.

Current number of Assyrians in all countries

Rank	Country	Centres of Assyrian/Syriac population	№ of Assyrians	Further info
1		Baghdad, Nineveh plains, Dohuk	800,000+	Assyrians in Iraq
2		Damascus qamishli al hassakeh	500,000	Assyrians and Syriacs in Syria
3			90,000	Assyrians in Germany
4		Michigan, Illinois, California	83,000 (2000 Census)	Assyrians in the United States
5			80,000	Assyrians and Syriacs in Sweden
6		Amman	77,000
7			60,000 (2006 Census)	Assyrians in Australia
8			15,000	Assyrians in France
9			14,000 (2002 Census)	Assyrians in Russia
10		Urmia, Tehran	10,000	Assyrians in Iran
11		Peristeri, Athens	8,000
12			8,000
13			8,000
14		Windsor, Hamilton, Toronto	7,000 (2001 Census)	Assyrians in Canada
15			5,000
16		Tur Abdin, Istanbul, Hakkâri	5,000	Assyrians and Syriacs in Turkey
17			5,000	Assyrians in the Netherlands
18			5,000
19			3,500 (2001 Census)	Assyrians in Armenia
20			3,500
21			3,300 (2002 Census)	Assyrians in Georgia
22			3,200 (2001 Census)
23			1,700 (2006 Census)
24			1,500

Historic Census

Former Soviet Union

History

Assyrians came to Russia and the Soviet Union in three main waves: The first wave was after the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828, that delineated a border between Russia and Persia. Many Assyrians found themselves suddenly under Russian sovereignty and thousands of relatives crossed the border to join them.

The second wave was a result of the repression and violence during and after World War I.

The third wave came after World War II, when Moscow unsuccessfully tried to establish a satellite state in Iranian Kurdistan. Soviet troops withdrew in 1946, and left the Assyrians exposed to exactly the same kind of retaliation that they had suffered from the Turks 30 years earlier. Again, many Assyrians found refuge in the Soviet Union, this time mainly in the cities. From 1937 to 1959, the Assyrian population in USSR grew by 587.3%

Soviet power in the thirties repressed the Assyrians' religion and persecuted religious and other leaders.

In recent years, the Assyrians have tended to assimilate with Armenians, but their cultural and ethnic identity, strengthened through centuries of hardships, found new expression under Glasnost.

USSR Census

• 1897 census: 5,300 "Syrio-Chaldeans" (by language)
• 1919 refugee status:

8,000 - 7,000 "Assyro-Chaldean" refugees in Tbilissi

2,000 Assyrians in Yerevan

15,000 Assyrians from Hakkari, 10,000 from Urmia and Salmas in the Russian region of Rostov

• 1926 census: 9,808 Assyrians (Aisor)
• 1959 census: 21,083 Assyrians
• 1970 census: 24,294 Assyrians
• 1979 census: 25,170 Assyrians
• 1989 census: 26,289 Assyrians

Russia

• 1989 census: 9,600 Assyrians, of whom 4,742 spoke Assyrian; 1,738 in the Krasnodar region
• 2002 census: 13,649 Assyrians (ассирийцы)

Armenia

• 1926 census: 21,215 Assyrians
• 1989 (Soviet) census: 5,963 Assyrians
• 2001 census: 3,409 Assyrians (3rd minority ethnic group after Yazidis and Russians): 524 urban, 2,485 rural

Georgia

• 1926 census: 2,904 Assyrians
• 1989 census: 6,206 Assyrians
• 2002 census: 3,299 Assyrians

Ukraine

• 2001 census: 3,143

Kazakhstan

• 2005 estimates: 540
• 270 in Almaty

Near East

Lebanon

estimates on December 31, 1944, by province (Muhafazat)

denomination	Beyrouth	Mount Lebanon	North Lebanon	South Lebanon	Biqa'	Total
Syriac Catholics	4,089	275	169	9	442	4,984
Syriac Orthodox	2,070	209	100	22	1,352	3,753
Chaldeans	974	120	1	10	225	1,330

1932 census and further estimates

denomination	1932 census	1944 estimates	1954 estimates
Syriac Catholics	2,675	4,984	..
Chaldeans	528	1,330	..
Syriac Orthodox	2,574	3,753	4,200
Assyrian "Nestorians"	800	1,200	1,400

Israel, Palestine, Jordan

The Americas

Argentina

• August 1919: 2,000 Assyro-Chaldeans refugees, most of all young people

Canada

• 2001 Census: Assyrian - 6,980
• 2006 Census: Assyrian - 8,650

United States

• 1990 census: 46,099 Assyrians
• 19,066 born in the US
• 16,783 arrived before 1980
• 10,250 between 1980 and 1990.
• 27,494 Syriac as the "Language Spoken at Home
• Unemployment: 9.1%
• 2000 census: 82,355 Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac
• 34,484 in Michigan
• Sterling Heights, Michigan: 5,515 (4.4% of the city)
• West Bloomfield, Michigan: 4,874 (7.5%)
• Southfield, Michigan: 3,684 (4.7%)
• Warren, Michigan: 2,625 (1.9%)
• Farmington Hills, Michigan 2,499 (3.0%)
• Troy, Michigan: 2,047 (2.5%)
• Detroit, Michigan 1,963 (0.2%)
• Oak Park, Michigan 1,864 (6.3%)
• Madison Heights, Michigan: 1,428 (4.6%)
• Orchard Lake Village, Michigan: 241 (10.9%)
• 22,671 in California
• 15,685 in Illinois
• Chicago, Illinois: 7,121 (0.2%)
• Niles, Illinois: 3,410 (3.3%)
• Maine Park, Illinois: 1,035 (0.8%)

• Syriac language: 46,932

Europe

Belgium

Assyrians in Belgium came mostly as refugees from the Turkish towns of Midyat and Mardin in Tur Abdin, most of them are Syriac Orthodox (Süryani), some Chaldean Catholics (Keldani). Their three main settlements are in Brussels (municipalities of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode - where they've got their only elected municipal councilman, the Christian Democrat Ibrahim Erkan, originally from Turkey -, Brussels and Etterbeek), Liège and in Mechelen. Since the October 8, 2006 municipal elections they've got two more councilmen, in Etterbeek, the Liberal Sandrine Es (whose family came from Turkey) and the Christian Democrat Ibrahim Hanna (originally from Syria's Khabur region). The Christian Democrat candidate in Mechelen, Melikan Kucam, was not elected. The Flemish writer August Thiry wrote the book Mechelen aan de Tigris (Mechelen on Tigris) about the Assyrian refugees from the village of Hassana in SE Turkey, district of Silopi. Melikan Kucam was one of them.

France

There are believed to be some 15,000, mainly concentrated in the northern French suburbs of Sarcelles, Gonnesse and Villiers-le-Bel. They are drawn from the same few villages in what is now south west Turkey.

Germany

Greece

The first migrants of Assyrian stock in Greece came in 1934, and settled in the areas of Makronisos (today uninhabited), Keratsini (Pireus), Egaleo and Kalamata. Today, the vast majority of Assyrians live in Peristeri, a suburb of Athens, and they number about 2,000. There are five Assyrian Christian marriages recorded at St. Pauls Anglican Church in Athens in 1924-25 (the transcripts can be viewed on St. Pauls Anglican Church website), thus indicating the beginning of the appearance of refugees at that time. The absence of further marriages at St. Pauls possibly indicates the arrival of a Nestorian clergyman in Athens shortly after 1925.

Netherlands

The first Assyrians came to the Netherlands in the 1970s; most of them were Western Assyrians from Turkey. Today the number of Assyrians is estimated to be between 25,000 and 35,000 and they mainly live in the east of the country, in the province of Overijssel, in such cities as Enschede, Hengelo, Almelo and Borne.

Sweden

In the latter part of the 1970s, about 12,000 Syrian Orthodox Assyrians from Lebanon, Turkey and Syria immigrated to Sweden. They considered themselves persecuted for religious reasons but were never acknowledged as refugees. Those who had already lived in Sweden for a longer period were finally granted residence permit for humanitarian reasons.

As with other Northern European countries, there is a dividing line in Sweden between the Aramaic speaking Christians. While the vast majority consider themselves Assyrian, there is a sizeable minority who refer to themselves as Syriac (Syrianska in Swedish.) They are mostly members of the Syriac Orthodox Church, but its important to note that not all Syriac Orthodox members identify with being Syriac only, as the majority of those who call themselves Assyrian are Syraic Orthodox as well.

Södertälje in Sweden is often seen as the unofficial Assyrian capital of Europe due to the city's high percentage of Assyrians and the Swedish professional football (soccer) team Assyriska, which played in the top Swedish football league (Allsvenskan) in 2005, is often viewed as a substitute national team by the diaspora and has fans worldwide. The international Suroyo TV which broadcast in the Assyrian language is also based in Sweden.

Between 2005 and 2006, there was an Assyrian minister in the Swedish government, Ibrahim Baylan.

Switzerland

Assyrians in Switzerland came mostly as refugees from the Turkish towns of Midyat, Mardin and Azakh(Idil) in Tur Abdin, most of them are Syriac Orthodox (about 1'600 Families). They mainly live in the east of the country in the Canton of St. Gallen (Wil-Area) and in Baden about 20km from Zurich. A big part of the Assyrians in Switzerland also live in the Italian part of Switzerland in the Canton of Ticino, mostly in Lugano and Locarno.

United Kingdom

Pacific

Australia

• 1996 census: 11,931 who spoke Assyrian (no ethnicity census in 1996)

*9,595 in New South Wales

*2,177 in Victoria (Australia)

*7,500 originally from Iraq and 4,000 originally from Iran.

*27% are Chaldean Catholic

• 2001 Census: 23,367

*18,667 Assyrians

45.9% Catholic, 49.0 Orthodox

*4,700 Iraqi Christian

74.3% Catholic, 24.0% Orthodox

• 2006 Census: 24,505 Assyrians/Chaldeans

*Language; Assyrian language spoken by 23,526

*Religious sects

ACOE: 5,956

Chaldean Catholic: 4,498

Syrian Orthodox: 2,879

Ancient COE: 2,224

New Zealand

• 1991 census: 315
• 1996 census: 807
• 2001 Census: 1,176
• 465 in Auckland Region
• 690 in Wellington Region
• "Unemployment rates highest for Somalis (37.2 percent) and Assyrians (40.0 percent)."
• "The particular ethnic groups with the highest proportions affiliated to a Christian denomination were Assyrian (99.0 percent) and Filipino (95.1 percent)."
• English spoken: 774, no English: 348; Number of Languages Spoken: 1: 225, 2: 405, 3: 423, 4: 63, 5: 3
• 2006 census: 1,683

Homeland Statistics

Syria

• United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on October 2005 reported that out of the 700,000 Iraqis who took refuge in Syria between October 2003 and March 2005, 36% were "Iraqi Christians."

References

Bibliography

Since World War I, the Assyrian diaspora has steadily increased so that there are now more Assyrians living in western and eastern Europe, North America and Australia, than in the Middle East. At the turn of the century, the Christian population in the Ottoman Empire had numbered about 5,000,000. When the Turks' massacres ended in 1923, about 20,000 Greeks, 10,000 Armenians and 30,000 Assyrians remained. The Civil War in Lebanon, the coming into power of the Islamic republic of Iran, the Ba'thist dictatorship in Iraq, and the present-day unrest in Iraq pushed even more Assyrians on the roads of exile.

Current number of Assyrians in all countries

Rank	Country	Centres of Assyrian/Syriac population	№ of Assyrians	Further info
1		Baghdad, Nineveh plains, Dohuk	800,000+	Assyrians in Iraq
2		Damascus qamishli al hassakeh	500,000	Assyrians and Syriacs in Syria
3			90,000	Assyrians in Germany
4		Michigan, Illinois, California	83,000 (2000 Census)	Assyrians in the United States
5			80,000	Assyrians and Syriacs in Sweden
6		Amman	77,000
7			60,000 (2006 Census)	Assyrians in Australia
8			15,000	Assyrians in France
9			14,000 (2002 Census)	Assyrians in Russia
10		Urmia, Tehran	10,000	Assyrians in Iran
11		Peristeri, Athens	8,000
12			8,000
13			8,000
14		Windsor, Hamilton, Toronto	7,000 (2001 Census)	Assyrians in Canada
15			5,000
16		Tur Abdin, Istanbul, Hakkâri	5,000	Assyrians and Syriacs in Turkey
17			5,000	Assyrians in the Netherlands
18			5,000
19			3,500 (2001 Census)	Assyrians in Armenia
20			3,500
21			3,300 (2002 Census)	Assyrians in Georgia
22			3,200 (2001 Census)
23			1,700 (2006 Census)
24			1,500

Historic Census

Former Soviet Union

History

Assyrians came to Russia and the Soviet Union in three main waves: The first wave was after the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828, that delineated a border between Russia and Persia. Many Assyrians found themselves suddenly under Russian sovereignty and thousands of relatives crossed the border to join them.

The second wave was a result of the repression and violence during and after World War I.

The third wave came after World War II, when Moscow unsuccessfully tried to establish a satellite state in Iranian Kurdistan. Soviet troops withdrew in 1946, and left the Assyrians exposed to exactly the same kind of retaliation that they had suffered from the Turks 30 years earlier. Again, many Assyrians found refuge in the Soviet Union, this time mainly in the cities. From 1937 to 1959, the Assyrian population in USSR grew by 587.3%

Soviet power in the thirties repressed the Assyrians' religion and persecuted religious and other leaders.

In recent years, the Assyrians have tended to assimilate with Armenians, but their cultural and ethnic identity, strengthened through centuries of hardships, found new expression under Glasnost.

USSR Census

• 1897 census: 5,300 "Syrio-Chaldeans" (by language)
• 1919 refugee status:

8,000 - 7,000 "Assyro-Chaldean" refugees in Tbilissi

2,000 Assyrians in Yerevan

15,000 Assyrians from Hakkari, 10,000 from Urmia and Salmas in the Russian region of Rostov

• 1926 census: 9,808 Assyrians (Aisor)
• 1959 census: 21,083 Assyrians
• 1970 census: 24,294 Assyrians
• 1979 census: 25,170 Assyrians
• 1989 census: 26,289 Assyrians

Russia

• 1989 census: 9,600 Assyrians, of whom 4,742 spoke Assyrian; 1,738 in the Krasnodar region
• 2002 census: 13,649 Assyrians (ассирийцы)

Armenia

• 1926 census: 21,215 Assyrians
• 1989 (Soviet) census: 5,963 Assyrians
• 2001 census: 3,409 Assyrians (3rd minority ethnic group after Yazidis and Russians): 524 urban, 2,485 rural

Georgia

• 1926 census: 2,904 Assyrians
• 1989 census: 6,206 Assyrians
• 2002 census: 3,299 Assyrians

Ukraine

• 2001 census: 3,143

Kazakhstan

• 2005 estimates: 540
• 270 in Almaty

Near East

Lebanon

estimates on December 31, 1944, by province (Muhafazat)

denomination	Beyrouth	Mount Lebanon	North Lebanon	South Lebanon	Biqa'	Total
Syriac Catholics	4,089	275	169	9	442	4,984
Syriac Orthodox	2,070	209	100	22	1,352	3,753
Chaldeans	974	120	1	10	225	1,330

1932 census and further estimates

denomination	1932 census	1944 estimates	1954 estimates
Syriac Catholics	2,675	4,984	..
Chaldeans	528	1,330	..
Syriac Orthodox	2,574	3,753	4,200
Assyrian "Nestorians"	800	1,200	1,400

Israel, Palestine, Jordan

The Americas

Argentina

• August 1919: 2,000 Assyro-Chaldeans refugees, most of all young people

Canada

• 2001 Census: Assyrian - 6,980
• 2006 Census: Assyrian - 8,650

United States

• 1990 census: 46,099 Assyrians
• 19,066 born in the US
• 16,783 arrived before 1980
• 10,250 between 1980 and 1990.
• 27,494 Syriac as the "Language Spoken at Home
• Unemployment: 9.1%
• 2000 census: 82,355 Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac
• 34,484 in Michigan
• Sterling Heights, Michigan: 5,515 (4.4% of the city)
• West Bloomfield, Michigan: 4,874 (7.5%)
• Southfield, Michigan: 3,684 (4.7%)
• Warren, Michigan: 2,625 (1.9%)
• Farmington Hills, Michigan 2,499 (3.0%)
• Troy, Michigan: 2,047 (2.5%)
• Detroit, Michigan 1,963 (0.2%)
• Oak Park, Michigan 1,864 (6.3%)
• Madison Heights, Michigan: 1,428 (4.6%)
• Orchard Lake Village, Michigan: 241 (10.9%)
• 22,671 in California
• 15,685 in Illinois
• Chicago, Illinois: 7,121 (0.2%)
• Niles, Illinois: 3,410 (3.3%)
• Maine Park, Illinois: 1,035 (0.8%)

• Syriac language: 46,932

Europe

Belgium

Assyrians in Belgium came mostly as refugees from the Turkish towns of Midyat and Mardin in Tur Abdin, most of them are Syriac Orthodox (Süryani), some Chaldean Catholics (Keldani). Their three main settlements are in Brussels (municipalities of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode - where they've got their only elected municipal councilman, the Christian Democrat Ibrahim Erkan, originally from Turkey -, Brussels and Etterbeek), Liège and in Mechelen. Since the October 8, 2006 municipal elections they've got two more councilmen, in Etterbeek, the Liberal Sandrine Es (whose family came from Turkey) and the Christian Democrat Ibrahim Hanna (originally from Syria's Khabur region). The Christian Democrat candidate in Mechelen, Melikan Kucam, was not elected. The Flemish writer August Thiry wrote the book Mechelen aan de Tigris (Mechelen on Tigris) about the Assyrian refugees from the village of Hassana in SE Turkey, district of Silopi. Melikan Kucam was one of them.

France

There are believed to be some 15,000, mainly concentrated in the northern French suburbs of Sarcelles, Gonnesse and Villiers-le-Bel. They are drawn from the same few villages in what is now south west Turkey.

Germany

Greece

The first migrants of Assyrian stock in Greece came in 1934, and settled in the areas of Makronisos (today uninhabited), Keratsini (Pireus), Egaleo and Kalamata. Today, the vast majority of Assyrians live in Peristeri, a suburb of Athens, and they number about 2,000. There are five Assyrian Christian marriages recorded at St. Pauls Anglican Church in Athens in 1924-25 (the transcripts can be viewed on St. Pauls Anglican Church website), thus indicating the beginning of the appearance of refugees at that time. The absence of further marriages at St. Pauls possibly indicates the arrival of a Nestorian clergyman in Athens shortly after 1925.

Netherlands

The first Assyrians came to the Netherlands in the 1970s; most of them were Western Assyrians from Turkey. Today the number of Assyrians is estimated to be between 25,000 and 35,000 and they mainly live in the east of the country, in the province of Overijssel, in such cities as Enschede, Hengelo, Almelo and Borne.

Sweden

In the latter part of the 1970s, about 12,000 Syrian Orthodox Assyrians from Lebanon, Turkey and Syria immigrated to Sweden. They considered themselves persecuted for religious reasons but were never acknowledged as refugees. Those who had already lived in Sweden for a longer period were finally granted residence permit for humanitarian reasons.

As with other Northern European countries, there is a dividing line in Sweden between the Aramaic speaking Christians. While the vast majority consider themselves Assyrian, there is a sizeable minority who refer to themselves as Syriac (Syrianska in Swedish.) They are mostly members of the Syriac Orthodox Church, but its important to note that not all Syriac Orthodox members identify with being Syriac only, as the majority of those who call themselves Assyrian are Syraic Orthodox as well.

Södertälje in Sweden is often seen as the unofficial Assyrian capital of Europe due to the city's high percentage of Assyrians and the Swedish professional football (soccer) team Assyriska, which played in the top Swedish football league (Allsvenskan) in 2005, is often viewed as a substitute national team by the diaspora and has fans worldwide. The international Suroyo TV which broadcast in the Assyrian language is also based in Sweden.

Between 2005 and 2006, there was an Assyrian minister in the Swedish government, Ibrahim Baylan.

Switzerland

Assyrians in Switzerland came mostly as refugees from the Turkish towns of Midyat, Mardin and Azakh(Idil) in Tur Abdin, most of them are Syriac Orthodox (about 1'600 Families). They mainly live in the east of the country in the Canton of St. Gallen (Wil-Area) and in Baden about 20km from Zurich. A big part of the Assyrians in Switzerland also live in the Italian part of Switzerland in the Canton of Ticino, mostly in Lugano and Locarno.

United Kingdom

Pacific

Australia

• 1996 census: 11,931 who spoke Assyrian (no ethnicity census in 1996)

*9,595 in New South Wales

*2,177 in Victoria (Australia)

*7,500 originally from Iraq and 4,000 originally from Iran.

*27% are Chaldean Catholic

• 2001 Census: 23,367

*18,667 Assyrians

45.9% Catholic, 49.0 Orthodox

*4,700 Iraqi Christian

74.3% Catholic, 24.0% Orthodox

• 2006 Census: 24,505 Assyrians/Chaldeans

*Language; Assyrian language spoken by 23,526

*Religious sects

ACOE: 5,956

Chaldean Catholic: 4,498

Syrian Orthodox: 2,879

Ancient COE: 2,224

New Zealand

• 1991 census: 315
• 1996 census: 807
• 2001 Census: 1,176
• 465 in Auckland Region
• 690 in Wellington Region
• "Unemployment rates highest for Somalis (37.2 percent) and Assyrians (40.0 percent)."
• "The particular ethnic groups with the highest proportions affiliated to a Christian denomination were Assyrian (99.0 percent) and Filipino (95.1 percent)."
• English spoken: 774, no English: 348; Number of Languages Spoken: 1: 225, 2: 405, 3: 423, 4: 63, 5: 3
• 2006 census: 1,683

Homeland Statistics

Syria

• United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on October 2005 reported that out of the 700,000 Iraqis who took refuge in Syria between October 2003 and March 2005, 36% were "Iraqi Christians."

References

Bibliography