“The term ‘refugee’ shall apply to any person who … owing to well-

founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion,

nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion,
is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such
fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or
who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former
habitual residence, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return
to it.” (UNHCR, 1951 Refugee Convention)
Countries producing the largest numbers of refugees include (in order)
the Syrian Arab Republic, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar, Somalia,
and Sudan. More than half (56%) of the world’s refugees in 2018 came
from these six countries. The number of refugees from Syria, South
Sudan, and Myanmar has increased rapidly over the last couple of years.

Homework:
Why?
The Worldwide Flow of Refugees
On the left side of this chord chart are most common countries of origin
for refugees. On the right side are the most common host countries for
refugees. The size of the arc for each country corresponds to the
number of refugees that originated in or are hosted in that country. The
arrows represent the physical journey of refugees from their countries
of origin to the counties in which they now live as refugees.

It is important to note that this visualization is based on the raw number

of refugees leaving and living in each country, and is not scaled based on
the population of each country. For instance, the chart above shows that
Germany hosts significantly more refugees than Lebanon, which is true,
but Lebanon hosts 208 refugees per 1,000 inhabitants compared to
Germany which hosts only 3 refugees per 1,000 inhabitants.