Calgary, Alberta, Canada
About 2,830 people of Somali origin lived in Calgary at the 2021 Census, with nearly 1,000 more in nearby Brooks, though community leaders put the real…
Qurbaha
Somalis worldwide
About 1.94 million people born in Somalia live abroad (UN DESA, 2024), and many more were born to Somali families there. Every community, how it lives, and how it stays tied to home.
North America
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
About 11,600 people of Somali origin lived in Edmonton at the 2021 Census, making it Canada's second-largest Somali city after Toronto.
Minneapolis–St Paul (Twin Cities), Minnesota, USA
Largest Somali community in the US.
Other US Somali communities
About 259,000 Somalis live in the United States, and about 150,000 of them live outside Minnesota, in places such as San Diego, Lewiston in Maine, Atlanta…
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Ottawa is home to one of Canada's main Somali communities, though no census figure for the city alone has been found.
Seattle and South King County, Washington, USA
Washington has "tens of thousands" of Somali immigrants, one of the largest Somali populations on the West Coast, mostly in south King County.
Toronto (and the Greater Toronto Area), Ontario, Canada
About 19,800 people of Somali origin lived in Toronto at the 2021 Census, the largest Somali community in Canada, with about half in Etobicoke.
United Kingdom
Birmingham (Somali diaspora)
16,971 Birmingham residents gave Somali as their ethnic group in Census 2021 (1.5% of the city), and 10,812 were born in Somalia; the council says the true.
Bristol (Somali diaspora)
About 9,170 people in Bristol called themselves Somali or Somalilander in the 2021 Census, 1.9% of the city, the fourth-largest Somali population of any…
London (Somali diaspora)
London holds 62.4% of the 176,645 people in England and Wales who identified as Somali in Census 2021, about 110,000 people (derived from the ONS share).
Other UK cities: Cardiff, Leicester, Manchester (Somali diaspora)
Cardiff: One of the UK's oldest Somali communities, in Butetown (Tiger Bay) and Bute Street; seamen arrived from the 1890s after the Suez Canal opened.
Europe
Denmark (Somali diaspora)
About 21,200 people of Somali origin lived in Denmark in 2017, nearly half of them born in Denmark.
Finland (Somali diaspora)
About 28,200 people in Finland spoke Somali as their first language in 2025, and more than half live in Helsinki.
Germany (Somali diaspora)
About 47,500 people born in Somalia lived in Germany in 2020, most of them arriving as asylum seekers in recent years.
Netherlands (Somali diaspora)
About 39,500 Somali Dutch lived in the Netherlands in 2017, and nearly 70% held Dutch nationality.
Norway (Somali diaspora)
About 43,300 people of Somali background lived in Norway in 2020, 0.8% of the country, and about a third of them live in Oslo.
Sweden (Somali diaspora)
About 70,000 people born in Somalia live in Sweden, with about 32,000 more born in Sweden to Somali parents.
Gulf and Middle East
Saudi Arabia
Somalis have lived and worked in Saudi Arabia since the Gulf work wave of the 1970s and 1980s, but no official count exists.
Türkiye
The Somali community in Türkiye is led by students. Since Türkiye's first large award of 300 scholarships in 2012, thousands of Somalis have studied there…
UAE (Dubai)
More than 50,000 Somalis live in the UAE, some since before 1972, mostly in Dubai's Deira and Abu Dhabi's Musaffah.
Yemen (Somali refugees)
About 38,000 Somali refugees live in Yemen, around 63% of its 61,000 registered refugees, mainly in Kharaz camp, Aden and Taiz.
Africa and the Horn
Djibouti
Djibouti hosts about 13,900 refugees and asylum seekers from Somalia, 39.5% of all its refugees (August 2026), most in the Ali Addeh and Holl Holl camps.
Ethiopia (Somali refugees and the Somali Region)
Ethiopia hosts about 362,000 refugees from Somalia (August 2026), most of them in the Dollo Ado camps near the border, and more than 50,000 crossed in 2026…
Kenya (Eastleigh, Dadaab, North Eastern Kenya)
Kenya hosts about 495,000 Somali refugees and asylum seekers (November 2025), most of them in the Dadaab camps, which opened in 1991.
South Africa (Western Cape and elsewhere)
Somalis in South Africa run thousands of small shops in townships around Cape Town, Johannesburg and the Eastern Cape, but no reliable count of them exists.
Asia Pacific
Australia
About 8,100 people born in Somalia lived in Australia at the 2021 Census, and many more have Somali roots.
The Horn and the outside powers
Somalia and the outside powers
The countries and bodies with the biggest stake in Somalia today, from the neighbours to the Gulf, Turkey, the US, the EU, the AU and the UN, and what each wants.
Toosoo!
Since 1895, every generation has worked for one united, prosperous Somalia. Now it is our generation.
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