 In 1960 Syrian Christians were counted as a whole but Muslims were still counted separately between Sunnis and Alawis.Before the Syrian Civil War began in 2011, the Syrian population was estimated at roughly 23 million permanent inhabitants, including between 1,000,000 and 1,500,000 Iraqi refugees of various ethnicities and creeds, 580,000 Palestinian refugees, mostly Sunni Arabs, and an unknown number of Lebanese or Lebanese-Syrian dual citizens, mostly Shia Arabs and Christian Arabs of various subcreeds.Some Palestinian and Lebanese families have been living in Syria for generations.