Palestinian diaspora (Arabic: الشتات‎, al-shatat) is a term used to describe Palestinians living outside of historic Palestine - an area today known as Israel and the Palestinian territories or the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Of the total Palestinian population worldwide, estimated at between 9 to 11 million people, roughly half live outside of their homeland.

Large-scale emigration of Christians began in the mid-19th century as a response to the oppression of Christians by the Ottoman Empire.

Since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Palestinians have experienced several waves of exile and lived in different host countries around the world. In addition to the Palestinian refugees of 1948, hundreds of thousands were also displaced in the 1967 war. Together, these refugees make up the majority of the Palestinian diaspora. Besides those displaced by war, others have emigrated overseas for various reasons such as work opportunity, education, religious persecution and persecution from Israeli authorities. In the decade following the 1967 war, for example, an average of 21,000 Palestinians per year were forced out of Israeli-controlled areas. The pattern of Palestinian flight continued during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s In the absence of a comprehensive census including all Palestinian diaspora populations and those that remained within the area once known as British Mandate Palestine, exact population figures are difficult to determine. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the number of Palestinians worldwide at the end of 2003 was 9.6 million, an increase of 800,000 since 2001.