Diaspora refers to a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. The term is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location but currently reside elsewhere. The word diaspora originates from Ancient Greek, where it had negative connotations, and it became applied to Judaism when Greek scholars translated the Pentateuch. Jewish cultural history is highly diasporic, and the term expanded to include the Armenian and African diasporas, but since the 1980s it has ballooned even further.

Diaspora is more than simply migration. It is an idea that helps to explain the world created by migration. Based on individual or group decisions to settle permanently in host-countries, but to maintain a common identity, most core members of diasporas identify as such, show solidarity with their group in their hostland and their entire nation, organize and are active in the cultural, social, economic, and political spheres. The various strategies that organized diasporas can follow include integration, acculturation, communalism, corporatism, autonomism, and isolation.

Diasporas come about through immigration and forced movements of people. The term has been used to describe a variety of groups, including the Jews living outside Palestine or modern Israel, members of the African diaspora, and any group migration or flight from a country or region. The movement, migration, or scattering of a people away from an established or ancestral homeland is also considered a diaspora.