Stories
Each story starts from the published statistics: figures are computed from the data at build time, sourced, and reproducible on the map. No photos, no case files — only checkable numbers.
Seventy-five years of counting
Not a history of displacement — a history of the counting itself, and what to watch for.
Syria: fourteen years displaced
For a decade the world’s largest country of origin — and most of the displaced never left Syria at all.
Venezuela: how a new category was born
Millions were legally neither refugees nor asylum-seekers. The statistics had to be honest about it.
Bangladesh: within a single year
After August 2017, the annual statistics show a rare vertical jump.
Afghanistan: forty-six years, and counting
Decades as the world’s largest origin since 1979 — and 2025 is a story of returns and deportations at unprecedented scale.
Ukraine: a record of speed
Within one year, the refugee figure multiplied roughly two-hundred-fold — a speed Europe had not seen since 1945.
Hong Kong and Macau: the per-capita record
In 1964, over 350 refugees per 1,000 residents — the highest per-capita figure in 75 years of data.
Rwanda: within weeks
Annual statistics have one cell for it — and in that cell, the figure goes from 450 thousand to over two million.
Colombia: the largest number never crossed a border
Over seven million stayed inside the country — read only the "refugees" column and Colombia is nearly invisible.