Millions Flee War, Floods, and Persecution

In 2023 nearly 5.5 million Ukrainians were forced to leave their homes because of the Russian invasion. In the same year, over 6 million refugees fled Pakistan following the devastating 2022 floods. Additionally, the ongoing war in Syria displaced over 3 million people, forcing them to seek refuge abroad.

In total, 27,320,316 people were displaced in 2023 and forced to seek a new life in a new country. Of those 27.3 million refugees, only 394,073 found a home in the United States. To put that into perspective, Germany - a country about 27.5 times smaller than the U.S. - accepted 2,488,862 refugees. Meanwhile, Iran alone took in 3,764,517 refugees, which is approximately 10 times the number accepted by the United States.

These figures come from the Refugee Project interactive map. The map uses 50 years of refugee migration data from the UNHCR to plot the numbers of refugees forced to flee individual countries each year since 1975, as well as the countries where they sought asylum. 

Using the map's timeline, you can select any year to view refugee data. Once a year is selected, you can choose any country in the world to see how many refugees it accepted that year and the countries those displaced individuals fled from. You can also explore how many refugees were forced to leave specific countries and where they found asylum globally.