The Tunisian diaspora refers to people of Tunisian origin living outside that country. It is the direct result of the strong rate of emigration which Tunisia has experienced since its independence in 1956.[1] In the 1960s and 70s, the favourable economic situation in France and Europe increased the phenomenon. The beginning of the 1980s saw the clear development of a Tunisian community in Europe as a result of the large number of people.[2] [3]
In 2014 the number of Tunisians residing abroad was numbered at 1,282,371 individuals,[4]
750000[5] have settled in France - one of the most important foreign communities in the country - and two thirds of them hold double citizenship. They are concentrated mostly in the large cities (40% in Paris, 12% in Lyons and 8% in Marseilles, with smaller communities in Nice, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Strasbourg, and Lille). Sonia Mabrouk connects this clumping phenomenon with the urban origin of the Tunisian migrants (Tunis and the littoral), but also with the nature of the different waves of migration. Thus the 1970s mainly saw the arrival of migrants from the south of Tunisia. These settled in the Rhône Valley and at Paris which offered the greatest number of opportunities for employment and created connections with their places of origin, which subsequently encouraged other migrants to settle in the same places. According to INSEE, 1.4% of children born in 2011 in Metropolitan France (i.e. 11,466 of 792,996) had a father born in Tunisia, with the greatest proportion in the departments of Alpes-Maritimes (8.6%), Var (4.5%), Seine-Saint-Denis (3.9%), Rhône (3.7%), Val-de-Marne (3.4%), and Bouches-du-Rhône (2.4%).[6]
In Germany the Rhein-Ruhr region has 18,000 Tunisians, Berlin has 5,700 Tunisians, Braunschweig has 2,200 Tunisians due to the city being a twin city of Sousse and having many other connections with Tunisia[7], Hamburg has 1,700 Tunisians[8], Munich has 1,640 Tunisians,Bremen has 1,567 Tunisians, Stuttgart has 1,350 Tunisians, Hanover has 1,122 Tunisians, Frankfurt has 1,023 Tunisians. Tunisians are dispersed throughout Germany in many medium-sized cities and villages especially in the states Lower Saxony, North Rhine Westphalia, Bavaria, Hessen and Baden Württemberg. The Braunschweig region, having an estimate of 8,000 Tunisian and Rhein Ruhr region, roughly 18,000, have the highest amount of Tunisian migrants in Germany as of year 2023.[9] [10]
There are 110,385 Tunisians in the other Arab countries, 44,195 in North America, 3359 in Subsaharan Africa and 2365 in Asia (excepting the Arab countries); 514 Tunisians are accounted for in Australia.
| Country | Total |
|---|---|
 France | |
 Italy | [11] |
 Germany | |