Druze in Syria

It is a strange post, it seems to be a gif format, why’s that More on reddit.com

And all the other colours? If youre gonna post a non english map translate the whole legend More on reddit.com

I have to point out that certain towns like Damascus and Homs are up to 20% Christian but this can't be pointed out in the map as the majority are still Sunni Arabs . More on reddit.com

Created using my own personal research on each individual district and its demographics. Sunni Muslims are the largest religion. The vast majority are Arabs (who follow the Hanafi madhab) who are almost the majority everywhere. They are divided into the Levantine group who dominate Western Syria (especially the plains and urban centers) as well as the Upper Mesopotamian Arabs whose dialect resembles the Iraqi dialect more and who live along the Euphrates river and its various tributaries in Eastern Syria. I can't talk more in detail about this group because they are arguably the most internally diverse. They vary from the urban to the rural to the nomadic, from region to region, from the tribal to the tribeless, and their dialects are the most diverse (for example the Sunni Coastal dialect is closer to the Alawite Coastal dialect than it is to other Sunni dialects). Kurds mainly live in the North especially the Khabur Valley, Afrin and Ayn-Al Arab (Kobani). They make up around 7% of the population and are followers of the Shaafi madhab of Sunni Islam. They mainly speak the Kurmanji variety of Kurdish which is dominant in Northern Iraq and most of Turkey (except the Zaza ofc). There are also Turkmen (Hanafi, 2%) in most of the Northeast, Aleppo and Northern Latakia province (Jebel Turkmen) and Circassians (Hanafi, 1%) in the Central Golan Heights, Daraa plain and parts of the Southern Aleppo governorate. The two are remnants of the Ottoman period though the Turkmen existed ever since the Seljuk period. Alawite Muslims are the second largest religious group, making up between 10-12% of the population, they are the absolute majority in the Coastal mountains as well as a slight majority in the coastal plains. They also settled heavily in the Western Ghab Plain and major cities like Homs, Latakia and Hama in more recent times. Almost all Alawites are Arabs belonging to various clans that all originate from the Coastal Mountains. This group is notable for dominating the country's military and security due to the president Bashar Al-Assad being a member of it. Ismaili Muslims make up around 2% of the population, most of their population is concentrated in the Southern portions of the Coastal mountains especially in and around Masyaf (where the countryside of the town is Alawite) but also the Sulaymiyah plain to the West. Alevi Muslims are the smallest of all religious groups, making up less than 1% of the population, they are prominent among the Turkmen minority of the country. The Druze are another prominent religious groups whose members are almost exclusively Arabs with their own unique clans. They originated from Ismaili Islam but there religion diverged so much that neither they (most at least) nor other Muslims consider them Muslims today. They are concentrated in Jebel Al Druze which roughly corresponds to the Suwaida governorate. They are also found all over Southern Syria as well as the city of Damascus. They make up around 3% of the population. Arab Christians are the third largest religious group in the country, making up around 10% of the population. They usually follow either the Greek Orthodox or Melikite Catholic churches, both are Greek-rite churches and the two groups regularly intermarry which is why I lumped the two together. Generally, Melikites make up the majority of Christians in the Suwaida and Daraa provinces while Greek Orthodox make up the majority of Christians from the Homs gap northwards. The Damascus Ghouta and the Ghab Plain are both mixed between the two churches though. Their community is highly respected in the country and they dominate in the fields of education and economy. Geographically, Arab Christians are found all over the Levantine Western portion of the country, usually a minority among Muslims though a few areas like Wadi Al Nasara, Saidnaya, Safita and many others are Christian majority. Syriac Christianity are common among Assyrians, most of whom belong to the Syriac Orthodox Church with some belonging to the Syriac Catholic church and very few being Chaldean (which is the most common church for Assyrians in neighboring Iraq). They mostly live in the Khabur Valley which always had an Assyrian community but saw a huge increase in the late 1910s following the Assyrian genocide. There is also a prominent Syriac Catholic community around Al-Nabk district. They make up around 2% of the population. Armenians are almost all members of the Apostolic Armenian Church. Similar to Assyrians, even though they always lived in the country, the vast majority of the modern population descend from survivors of the Armenian genocide by the Ottomans. They make up a significant population in most of Northern and Eastern Syria and are especially urban. They also make up around 2% of the population. Also to be noted, some other minority groups exist, like Aramaeans in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains who speak Western Neo-Aramaic and are half Muslim half Christian, or the Greek Muslims in Coastal Syria, or Chechens who arrived (along with Circassians) following the Russian conquest of the Caucasus. Using my estimations, Sunni Arabs are the largest group at 60% which is a slight majority. If we want to be more specific, Levantine Sunni Arabs make up almost exactly half of the population, while 10% are Upper Mesopotamian Sunni Arabs. More on reddit.com