Official Jordanian statistics gave a 1987 population figure of 2,896,800 for the East Bank. A 1982 population of 2,399,300 thus suggested an annual growth rate of between 3.6 and 4 %. United Nations statistics projected a peak in the annual growth rate at 4.11 % in the time from 1990 to 1995, followed by a steady decline to 2.88 % in 2020.

The population of Jordan is almost entirely Arab. The only sizable racial minorities in the nation are the Circassians and the Armenians; each group accounts for less than 1 % of the population. Jordan is 74 % urban; nomads and seminomads make up perhaps 5 % of the population.

large majority of the population (more than 95 %) are Sunnite Muslims; Christians constitute most of the rest, of whom two-thirds adhere to the Rum, or Greek Orthodox church. Other Christian groups include the Greek Catholics, also called the Melchites, or Catholics of the Byzantine rite, who recognize the supremacy of the Roman pope; the Roman Catholic community, headed by a pope-appointed patriarch; and the small Syrian Orthodox, or Jacobite, church, whose members use Syriac in their liturgy. Most non-Arab Christians are Armenians, and the majority belong to the Gregorian, or Armenian, Orthodox church, while the rest attend the Armenian Catholic church. There are several Protestant denominations representing communities whose converts came almost entirely from other Christian sects.