(6) Population
Distribution
The latest official record (1914-15) makes the registered population of Syria 3,156,000. This does not include those who are not Ottoman subjects, nor the Beduin, and is believed to be otherwise under-estimated. The total population may be estimated at at about 3½ millions.
The average density of the population is 43 per square mile. In the vilayet of Aleppo it is only 30 (population 857,000, including Beduin), in Lebanon 330 (population 407,700, excluding Beirut, which has 500,000), in western Palestine (as far as Bir es-Seba) 119 (population 718,000). For some years before the war the population of Lebanon was decreasing, and in 1914 it was probably less than 300,000.
The largest towns in Syria are Aleppo, Damascus (populations 200,000 or more), and Beirut (180,000). Jerusalem, Homs, Hama, and Aintab range between 60,000 and 80,000, and the following between 20,000 and 40,000: Jaffa, Gaza, Hebron, Nablus, Haifa, and Safed, in western Palestine; Tripoli, Latakia, and Antioch on or near the northern coast. In Lebanon (Beirut is not included in the province) Zahleh is the only town of any size (14,000). Elsewhere most of the Syrian people live in hamlets or small villages.
Movement
There are no statistics by which the birth- and death-rates, with the rate of increase of the population, may be determined, but the death-rate is known to be high. Emigration has seriously drained the country for many years, although, on the contrary, some of the towns of western Palestine have lately increased rapidly (e.g., Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Nazareth). Since 1880 the population of the coast towns generally has consistently increased (e.g., Beirut, Tripoli, and Latakia); but
