Syria: fourteen years displaced
Before 2011, Syria was a country that hosted refugees. Since then it has become the world’s largest country of origin — and most of the displaced never left Syria at all.
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The turn in the numbers
At the end of 2010, UNHCR recorded 18 451 Syrian refugees. By 2021 the figure reached 6 848 865 — the latest figure (2025) is 4 865 764.
Most never crossed a border
Internal displacement peaked in 2014 at 7 632 500 people — more than any single country hosted in Syrian refugees. The latest figure (2025) is 5 542 227. Internal displacement has no "host country": these people are counted under Syria itself, in both views.
Returns, slowly
In 2025, 1 341 148 refugees returned to Syria (a flow during the year, not a stock). Return is a question of voluntariness, safety and dignity — the number records how many happened, not whether they should have.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page is computed at build time from the data this site publishes (source: UNHCR Refugee Population Statistics Database, data as of 2025-12-31) — never hand-written, and corrected automatically with every data update. Definitions and caveats: methodology; the full series: the Syria country page.