Palestine Economy Portal

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the Palestinian world population totaled 12.4 million by the end of 2015. This indicates that the number of Palestinians worldwide has multiplied about nine-fold in the 68 years since the Nakba. According to statistics, the total number of Palestinians living in historic Palestine (between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean) by the end of 2015 was 6.2 million and this number is expected to rise to 7.1 million by the end of 2020 based on current growth rates.

Statistical data also show that refugees constitute 42.8% of the total Palestinian population in Palestine. UNRWA records showed that there were 5.59 million Palestinian refugees registered at the beginning of 2015.   Around 28.7% of Palestinian registered refugees live in 58 refugee camps, of which 10 are in Jordan, 9 in Syria, 12 in Lebanon, 19 in the West Bank, and 8 in the Gaza Strip.

These estimates represent the minimum number of Palestinian refugees, given the presence of non- registered refugees. These estimates also do not include Palestinians who were displaced between 1949 and the 1967 war, according to the UNRWA definition, and do not include the non-refugees who left or were forced to leave as a result of the 1967 war.

The number of Palestinians who remained in their homeland in the 1948 territory after the Nakba was estimated at 154 thousand persons, but estimates for 2015 show that it has grown to 1.5 million on the 68th anniversary of the Nakba.  In the 1948 territories, the sex ratio is 102.2 males per 100 females, while 34.8% of the population are below 15 years of age and 4.2% are aged 65 years and over, based on available statistics relating to Palestinians living in Israel in 2014. This illustrates that the composition of the Palestinian population in the 1948 territory is young, as it is in Palestinian society as a whole.

The number of Palestinians in Palestine was estimated at 4.8 million at the end of 2015: 2.9 million in the West Bank and 1.9 million in Gaza Strip. The number of Palestinians in the Jerusalem Governorate at the end of 2015 was around 423 thousand, of whom 62.1% live in the areas of Jerusalem forcibly annexed by Israel in 1967 (J1).  The fertility rate in Palestine is high compared to other countries. The total fertility rate in the period 2011-2013 was 4.1 births (3.7 births per woman in the West Bank and 4.5 births per woman in Gaza Strip).

Moreover, the population density in Palestine at the end of 2015 was 789 individuals per square kilometer (km2): 513 individuals/km2 in the West Bank and 5,070 individuals/km2 in Gaza Strip. In Israel, the population density of Arabs and Jews in 2015 was about 391 individuals/km2.