Because religious balance is a sensitive political issue, a national census has not been conducted since 1932, before the founding of the modern Lebanese state.

[citation needed] The biggest study made after the independence on the Lebanese Population was made by the Central Administration of Statistics (in French: "Administration Centrale de la Statistique") under the direction of Robert Kasparian and Grégoire Haddad's Social Movement: "L'enquête par sondage sur la population active au Liban en 1970" (in English: "The survey on the active population in Lebanon in 1970").

One of the rare things that most Lebanese religious leaders will agree on is to avoid a new general census, for fear that it could trigger a new round of denominational conflict.

This system of government, while partly intended as a compromise between sectarian demands, has caused tensions that still dominate Lebanese politics to this day.

The Christian population majority is believed to have ended in the early 1970s, but government leaders would agree to no change in the political power balance.

This led to Muslim demands for increased representation, and the constant sectarian tension slid into violent conflict in 1958 (prompting U.S. intervention) and again in the grueling Lebanese Civil War, in 1975–90.

These have the right to handle family law according to their courts and traditions, and they are the basic players in Lebanon's complex sectarian politics.

Maronites, the largest among the Christian denomination and then largely in control of the state apparatus, accounted for 29% of the total resident population.

[12] A 2010 study conducted by Statistics Lebanon, a Beirut-based research firm, cited by the United States Department of State found that Lebanon's population of approximately 4.3 million was estimated to be:[13] There is also a very small number of other religious minorities such as, Baháʼís, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, and Mormons.

[30] Other religions account for only an estimated 0.3% of the population mainly foreign temporary workers, according to the CIA World Factbook.

They trace their origin to several waves of Christian emigration, starting with the exodus that followed the 1860 Lebanon conflict in Ottoman Syria.

If suffrage was to be extended to these 1.2[citation needed] million Lebanese émigré citizens, it would have a significant political effect, since as many as 82% of them are believed to be Christian.

[citation needed] With no official figures available, it is estimated that 600,000–900,000 persons fled the country during the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90).

Although some have since returned, this permanently disturbed Lebanese population growth and greatly complicated demographic statistics.

[31] Other studies have pointed to the fact that this portion of society is highly marginalized due to the lack of educational and governmental support of their advancement.

Age structure: Notable events in demography of Lebanon: The website Our World in Data prepared the following estimates based on statistics from the Population Department of the United Nations.

Also, recent years have seen an influx of people from Ethiopia[35] and South East Asian countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Sri Lanka,[36] as well as smaller numbers of other immigrant minorities, including Colombians and Brazilians (many of Lebanese descent themselves).

Prior to the Lebanese Civil War, the number was higher, but the community lost a portion of its population to emigration.

There are also a number of Palestinians who are not registered as UNRWA refugees, because they left earlier than 1948 or were not in need of material assistance.

The exact number of Palestinians remain a subject of great dispute and the Lebanese government will not provide an estimate.

Palestinian refugees, who constitute nearly 6.6% of the country's population, have long been denied basic rights in Lebanon.

Many Shia Muslims also look unfavorably upon the Palestinian presence since the refugee camps have tended to be concentrated in their home areas.

Late prime minister Rafiq Hariri —himself a Sunni— had hinted on more than one occasion on the inevitability of granting these refugees Lebanese citizenship.

Their primary sources of income are UNRWA aid and menial labor sought in competition with Syrian guest workers.

In 1976, the then Syrian president Hafez al-Assad sent troops into Lebanon to fight PLO forces on behalf of Christian militias.

This led to escalated fighting until a cease-fire agreement later that year that allowed for the stationing of Syrian troops within Lebanon.

Due to the US-led invasion of Iraq, Lebanon received a mass influx of Iraqi refugees numbering at around 100,000.

[44] The Turkish people began to migrate to Lebanon once the Ottoman sultan Selim I conquered the region in 1516.