Arabs in Europe

Arabs in Europe are people of Arab descent living in Europe today and over the centuries. Several million Arabs are residents in Europe. The vast majority form part of what is sometimes called the "Arab diaspora", i.e. ethnic Arabs or people descended from such living outside the Arab World. Most of the Arabs in Europe today are from the Maghreb. In 2010 the estimate of the Arab population in Europe was approximately 6 million (the total number of the Arab population in Europe described beneath is 6,370,000 people), mostly concentrated in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Greece. The majority of migrants come from Morocco (2.2 million), Algeria (1.4 million), Tunisia (950,000), Lebanon (700,000), Palestine (700,000), Syria (350,000), Iraq (250,000), Egypt (220,000), Jordan (150,000), Yemen (150,000), Libya (100,000) and Sudan (100,000). Most Arabs in Europe are followers of Islam but there is also a sizable Arab Christian community living in Europe. For example, almost half of the Lebanese immigrants are Christians. Arab presence in Europe predates Islam, and became predominant during the eras of the Roman and Byzantine Empire. The Romans conquered the Nabatean Kingdom in Northern Arabia, and named the province Arabia Petraea, and led a failed invasion of Yemen and South Arabia and what they called Arabia Felix or "Happy Arabia". Although at the time, Syria was a non-Arab nation for the most part, it had already been home to a large Arab minority. These were assimilated Arabs, and they established a well-known presence, especially in the Severan Dynasty. In the late 180s, the Roman emperor Septimius Severus married a prominent Syrian Arab by the name of Julia Domna. Domna had a descendant, Elagabalus who eventually became Roman Emperor as well. In 244 A.D., another Syrian Arab by the name of Marcus Julius Philippus or Philip ascended to the Roman throne upon Emperor Gordian III's death.