Hong Kong and Macau: the per-capita record
Across 75 years of data, the answer to "who hosted the most, relative to its own population" is not found today — it is Hong Kong and Macau in 1964, with over 350 refugees per 1,000 residents.
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Roughly one person in three
Through the 1950s and 60s, large numbers of people crossed from mainland China into Hong Kong. By 1964, UNHCR's records amount to 357.1 refugees per 1,000 Hong Kong residents — the highest per-capita figure in the 75 years of this dataset. Macau, the same year: 354.5 per 1,000 — the second-highest ever.
See it on the map (per-capita view) →
The absolute numbers
The absolute numbers are striking too: 22,000 in 1954, peaking in 1965 at 1,251,200. Macau peaked in 1964 at 80,000. These early figures are administrative estimates of their era, less precise than modern registration — we show them as recorded, unpolished.
How the number went to nearly zero
In the latest data (2025), Hong Kong hosts 236 refugees. What happened in between was mostly not return but the end of a status: the vast majority settled and became Hong Kong's population itself. "Refugee" in these statistics is a legal status — when the status ends, the number leaves the series; the people did not.
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; per-capita rates use UN WPP population). Definitions and caveats: methodology; full series: Hong Kong and Macau.