How to cite responsibly
Being cited is why this site exists. This page keeps the numbers attached to their context after they leave.
Cette page n'est pas encore disponible en français — la version anglaise est affichée ci-dessous.
Citing, quickly
- Press Cite on any view for APA 7 / Chicago / BibTeX / plain formats. The publication year is the data year, not the year you clicked; the citation carries the snapshot id (currently
21506b7d) so the exact bytes remain recoverable. - Cite the upstream source (UNHCR / IDMC) alongside this site — we are a verifiable republication, not the origin.
- Permanent links reproduce year, metric, view and filters; share the link, not a screenshot URL.
Permanent archive (DOI)
Data snapshots are archived quarterly on Zenodo (the CERN-run permanent repository). To cite "the latest version", use the concept DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22087749 — it always resolves to the newest quarter; each quarter also has its own version DOI, listed on the Zenodo record. Even if this site disappears, the DOI and the data bundle remain.
Five rules
- Carry the definition with the number. Every metric has a legal definition and a collection start-year (stateless 2004, OIP 2018…). Quote the category and year — see the definitions timeline.
- Not reported is not zero. A grey country means "no figure that year", not "no displaced people". Write "not reported", never "zero" or "none".
- Numbers are people, not water. Avoid flood metaphors — "waves", "influx", "swamped" — which cast persecuted people as a natural disaster. Write "X people were forcibly displaced".
- Check the category before comparing years. Who gets counted has kept changing for seventy-five years; dividing today by 1951 measures the change in categories, not the change in the world.
- Estimates never impersonate reports. Nowcasts and recent events (IDU) are labelled estimates; keep the word "estimate" attached, and never mix them into annual reported series.
Desk checklist
- ☐ Metric and year are explicit ("year-end 2024 refugee stock", not "refugee numbers")
- ☐ Source and as-of date given (UNHCR, data as of 2025-12-31)
- ☐ Grey / missing written as "not reported"
- ☐ No flood metaphors
- ☐ A reproducible share link or snapshot id is attached
- ☐ Estimates carry the word "estimate"
Methods-section boilerplate
Paste-ready for a methods section (snapshot id and date are filled in at build time):
Displacement figures are taken from Where They Went (snapshot 21506b7d, data as of 2025-12-31), which republishes UNHCR Refugee Population Statistics Database and IDMC figures verbatim with content-addressed snapshots. "Not reported" values are preserved as missing, not zero. Metric definitions and their coverage start-years follow UNHCR usage (e.g. OIP from 2018, stateless from 2004); see wheretheywent.lakkev.com/methodology.