Refugee and Asylum Seeker Populations by Country of Origin and Destination, 2000-2023

The forcibly displaced population is made of four subgroups:

• Refugees are those recognized under UN conventions and protocols as well as UNHCR statutes as deserving of protection. The 2023 refugee data provided here include the 31.6 million people under UNHCR mandate and the 6 million Palestinian refugees residing in areas of operation of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) such as Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
• Asylum seekers are those who have sought international protection and whose claims for refugee status have not yet been determined. In 2023, there were 6.9 million asylum seekers worldwide.
•  Internally Displaced People (IDPs) are individuals who have been forced to leave their homes to escape armed conflict, violence, violations of human rights, or natural disasters, and who have not crossed an international border. IDP estimates reported here come from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), which maintains a database on IDPs displaced due to violence and conflict as well as due to natural disasters, providing a comprehensive picture of global internal displacement. In 2023, there were 68.3 million IDPs globally.
• Other people in the need of international protection: Refers to individuals who are outside their country or territory of origin, typically because they have been forcibly displaced across international borders, who have not been reported under other categories (asylum seekers, refugees, or people in refugee-like situations) but who likely need international protection, including protection against forced return, as well as access to basic services on a temporary or longer-term basis. In 2023, there were 5.8 million people in this category globally. Venezuelans previously designated as “Venezuelans displaced abroad” are included in this new category. This change has been made retroactively in UNHCR’s statistics since 2018. As of 2022, only Venezuelans displaced abroad were in this category.

In all years but 2023, the total number of forcibly displaced people is the sum of the four groups listed above. In 2023, there was some overlap between the count of IDPs in the Gaza Strip and the count of Palestinian refugees under the UNRWA mandate. As of the end of 2023, UNRWA estimated that 70 percent of the 1.7 million IDPs in the Gaza Strip were also refugees under its mandate. While these IDPs are shown in the IDPs overall count as well as in the Palestinian refugees under the UNRWA mandate, they are counted only once in the total count for all countries and in Palestinian total forcibly displaced persons.

Read more about the groups that make up the total forcibly displaced population in the UNHCR Global Trends Report 2023, www.unhcr.org/global-trends-report-2023.

UNHCR's Statistical Online Population Database is updated from time to time; as a result, data in this tool might not always match UNHCR reports. For more information on sources, methods, and data considerations in the UNHCR Online Population Database, visit: www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/methodology/.