Talk:List of sovereign states by refugee population

Afghanistan
Source of refugees completely omits Afghanistan. Why? Tiddy (talk) 02:45, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Palestinians
We should include Palestinian refugees here. The only reason they are not in the UNHCR stats is given below:
 * Why do Palestine refugees not come under the mandate of UNHCR? As UNRWA was set up in 1949, Palestine refugees were specifically and intentionally excluded from the international refugee law regime established in 1951. The 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol thereto exclude Palestine refugees as long as they receive assistance from UNRWA. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) provides assistance and protection to Palestine refugees outside UNRWA's areas of operations.

In other words it is simply because UNRWA was set up first.

The World Bank agrees:

Oncenawhile (talk) 20:46, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

But the figure of 6.6 million from Palestine seems to be inaccurate. There were less than 2 million people living in Palestine in 1948 and only some of them became refugees. And since then not more than 5 million would have fled. The refugees therefore would probably be second or third generation refugees. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:AA14:A100:A880:9432:C9A0:2BDE:8BEE (talk) 16:28, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

The UNRWA lists 4,919,917 refugees and a total of 5,271,893 registered persons.

Is the "rank order" template really needed?
I am so sorry for my horrible edit earlier! I completely forgot to close the brackets, and I didn't even see what I'd done! I am deeply sorry for this, thank you to those who fixed it so quickly.

Onto the point I'd like to make, Is the "rank order" template really necessary at the top of the article? The page is all about the countries being listed in order of refugee population, meaning that the country on the top is the country that has the most amount of refugees in the world, and this order continues in a ranked form. Therefore, is it really necessary? I understand if it is, but I just wished to point it out and ask about it. Thanks! --Rhain1999 (talk) 07:16, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

What does country of origin mean?
Citizenship? Birth? Last Residence before asylum?

grossly erroneous statistics
The USA has absorbed millions of refugees over the years, not thousands. 

Over a million and a quarter from the Indochina region alone. 

Someone's obviously changing this number, today it states 763 refugees in the U.S. Obviously incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.201.169.197 (talk) 04:39, 6 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Your first link says 3 million since 1975. Once refugees get a Green Card, they are probably no longer listed as refugees. The figure is perhaps only the total of new refugees in 2011. --Espoo (talk) 23:40, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

EU 28
1.5 Million refugee persons legally residing in the EU's 28 member states; 250,000 yearly newly recognized refugees in the EU. http://www.euractiv.com/sections/social-europe-jobs/freedom-movement-under-european-conditions-303753 --SvenAERTS (talk) 08:56, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Gambia and Palestine
Gambia and Palestine are both listed twice in the 'refugees from' list 68.84.51.148 (talk) 21:40, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

South Korea
Are North Korean refugees not considered as refugees? Cause then the number for South Korea should be much higher. There are about 25,000 North Korean defectors living in South Korea. --Christian140 (talk) 15:59, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Do you have reliable sources for this figure? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:18, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * This paper cites the ministry of unification: "There were 26,483 North Korean refugees living in South Korea as of March of 2014, 40% of them being children and young adults aged 10 to 29 (Ministry of Unification, 2014)." - Sung Jiyoung, Go Myong-Hyun: Resettling in South Korea: Challenges for Young North Korean Refugees. The Asan Institute for Policy Studies. 2014-24. --Christian140 (talk) 19:47, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Okay, had been to the site of the South Korean ministry of unification. There it says under "③ Number of North Korean Refugees Entered the South" -> Total: 26.124 ( http://eng.unikorea.go.kr/content.do?cmsid=1822 ) However, I am not sure if the English site is updated frequently. I will look on the Korean website next week. Unfortunately, it is not good enough that I can translate all this without dictionary. Also, in another article I read, this is the absolute number of North Koreans who defected to South Korea. But some already died or went to other countries. So that the actual number of NK refugees living in Korea is slightly, not much, lower... Think I read it in an article by Andrei Lankov, but not sure. --Christian140 (talk) 19:58, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, yes. As I expected. The Korean language version is more up to date. The data for up to December 2014 shows 27,518 refugees. http://www.unikorea.go.kr/content.do?cmsid=1440 The English language version still shows the 2013 data. And here is the recent Andrei Lankov contribution to NKNews: "As of January 1, 2015, there were 27,518 North Korean defectors in South Korea. Well, this statistic, provided by the Ministry of Unification, is somewhat misleading: The figure includes all cases of defection since the Armistice Agreement of 1953. Some of the refugees have died (though not many, since 90 percent arrived after 2000) [..."] --Christian140 (talk) 20:11, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Apologies for taking so long in responding here, . I agree that the Korean Ministry for Unification site's figures are preferable to a 2010 English language article. I've cleaned up the reference you added and made a 'best attempt' at translating the title, etc. There's no difficulty for anyone wanting to check up on the stats using Google translate in order to verify them. Thanks for adding some well needed sourcing to the article! --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:24, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay. It also seems that the data in the wikipedia article are from 2011 while the newest report is from 2013. I think I also will go through the new report and then contact the UN Human rights department why North Korean defectors are not considered. I guess it is because they immediately get South Korean citizenship when they enter the South, but in my opinion, they still should be considered as refugees. --Christian140 (talk) 09:08, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Once/if you have confirmation of this being the practice, leave a note here on the talk page for future references for other contributors who may query how the figure was established. For the moment, I've simply created a break between the unsourced "401" refugees and the 27 thousand+ for North Korean refugees, and made the figures in brackets smaller. Once there is reliably sourced information as to how the North Korean 'migration' to South Korea is perceived by the governments, for the sake of presentation it would be cleaner to present it as +referenced number of North Koreans with an inline note clarifying how the figure has been derived, and the specifications thereof. Cheers! --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:33, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I fear they won't reply. But maybe there are some politcs and other social sciences academics here that know the reason for this. --Christian140 (talk) 13:57, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, therein lies the problem. Unless we're certain as to their official status, it's original research. While logic dictates that this isn't moving to another part of Korea in order to be closer to work, we still need RS to verify that they are considered to be refugees. I'm going to think on pinging a few other editors for their input. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:33, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Definitions
When does a refugee stop being a refugee? Is this list 'current refugee population', 'current population who were ever taken in as refugees', 'refugee intake over X years'? This should be explained on the page. Many of the nations listed have taken in more refugees than is listed.

Dates should be included with the numbers - for example, this page says Turkey only has 20k refugees, while the Refugee page says 1.7M due to the conflict in Syria - 59.167.194.48 (talk) 04:58, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

This table format is the absolute WORST
Why does a table have a manually-entered rank number? So if a country needed to be moved up 10 spaces, you'd have to edit 10 different rows and adjust each rank number manually. Why wasn't a template that does this automatically used? 128.84.127.37 (talk) 16:23, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
 * In which case, you are welcome to help fix the problem. The Wikipedia project functions on volunteer editors, and asking others to fix things they don't have the time or inclination to do is not a solution (see WP:NOTCOMPULSORY). Rather than complain about it, teach yourself how to edit Wikipedia tables (you'll need to practice in your sandbox). Thank you for volunteering. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 01:41, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Australian stats
I don't know how to update refugees/local stats. Julie Bishop tonight on Ch10 stated that Australia's current refugee quota is 13750. Can someone update these stats???58.166.142.15 (talk) 09:58, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I assume that you are talking about this. This article doesn't deal with government quotas, nor with current affairs. See WP:NOTNEWS and WP:NOT. There are articles dealing with asylum seekers, the Australian government, etc. Please find the appropriate article (assuming one exists). Incidentally, I've reverted your good faith errors in the article as all you did what break parameters for a template callout. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:47, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

According to the Refugee Council of Australia, Australia has taken in over 800,000 refugees since Federation. http://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/r/isub/2014-15_Intake%20sub.pdf This article is overtly political in that it attempts to convey a false sense of which countries are taking in refugees by *not* counting those refugees who are treated so very well by their host country that they are given full residency and eventually citizenship. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.200.153.96 (talk) 07:24, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

grossly erroneous /confusing statistics
As someone pointed out above, the US has absorbed millions of refugees over the years, not thousands. 

Over a million and a quarter from the Indochina region alone. 

The first link says 3 million since 1975. Once refugees get a Green Card, they are probably no longer listed as refugees. The (4 year old!!) figure in the chart (264,763) is perhaps only the total of new refugees in 2011.

The same is true for most or many other countries. The same confusion is true of the 2014 report. --Espoo (talk) 23:46, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed that the article/list is a mess (which is why I tagged it for being inaccurate back in May). I'm sure it was created in good faith, but various factors were not addressed from its inception: when does a refugee stop being a refugee; how does one co-ordinate updates all round; how does the list of refugees in the 'By country of asylum' tally with the list of 'By country of origin' as they are dependent on entirely difference sources. The lead, in itself, only describes what a refugee is, but there is no norm form the lists themselves. While the idea of having these lists may be a good one, maintenance is problematic without reasonable definitions and a constant supply of RS for updating them. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:31, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Isn't the list supposed to show current refugee populations? So using the "3 million since 1975" number for the US is misleading, when most other countries are only listed with their current, actual, refugee population. Once a person has attained statehood or has successfully been resettled, that person can hardly still be considered a "refugee". Otherwise the whole US population could still be considered refugees from Europe. Comparing 3 million people who've been successfully "absorbed", over the time-span of 4 decades, with the millions upon millions who are sitting right now in camps in Turkey, Jordan and other countries is not really a good, some would even say dishonest, comparison. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:86:8D44:F49A:9170:242F:C8AE:A12E (talk) 16:32, 15 November 2015 (UTC)


 * 'Dishonest?' What happened to assume good faith? If you want to talk about misleading comparisons, consider the tens of millions of refugees that the USA has absorbed from Mexico, Central America, and elsewhere from around the globe.


 * They factor nowhere in this equation. The only difference between them and the refugees in the Middle East is that the people of the United States give jobs, educations, drivers licenses, health care and welfare to their refugees. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.241.160.157 (talk) 18:16, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
 * IP 2003:86:8D44:F49A:9170:242F:C8AE:A12E and IP 23.241.160.157: Essentially, you're both commenting on the fundamental problems with this article, being that the parameters for the concept of 'refugee' are ill defined. The definition of 'refugee' is WP:OR as there are no reliable sources for the existing definition for the article. I could easily introduce reliable sources defining 'refugees' as also encompassing economic refugees looking for a financially secure existence. Without an WP:NOR definition, there are no encyclopaedic parameters to restrict what constitutes a refugee. In effect, it means that both lists - and sources used for the lists - are original research. UNHCR reports only address a particular type of refugee. Other sources used don't define when a refugee ceases to be a refugee. Until a proscribed definition is applied to 'refugee' for this list (well, two distinct lists in reality) without cherry picking a definition/set of definitions, the article remains original research. The more problematic of the two lists is the second (By country of origin)... When does a 'refugee' cease to be a 'refugee'. Until these issues are cleared up, emotive and WP:OFFTOPIC arguments are going to prevail on this talk page. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:05, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Seperate article 'List of countries by refugee origin'
I would prefer if the second section/table 'refugees by country of origin' would get its own page/articel. I find it confusing that it appears on a page on countries by refugee population - it is somehow very different. Please let me know if you think an seperate article 'List of countries by refugee origin' would be a good idea. I am quite convinced but want to know what others think. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michtrich (talk • contribs) 12:28, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree that this would be a better strategy than having conflicting information in the current two tables/sections. The country of asylum section should be a separate list as it is dependent on other sources altogether. Changing the WP:TITLE and creating a separate article to reflect the two types of list is the sensible way around the problem. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:58, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Lebanon
It's not 2 million refugees! But 1.1M according to the same source linked (UNHCR) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.27.82.255 (talk) 09:47, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

The table says there were 1,172,388 refugees in Lebanon in mid-2015 - not 2 million (??). Michtrich (talk) 21:53, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Indeed, it does. I've checked the source, and the IP contributor is correct. Are you asking a question or posing one? You only need to download the zip and open it yourself to confirm what the stats say. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 05:48, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Too many years
Updating the article by appending years instead of replacing them results in bad tables like the ones in this article. Were 2019, 2018, 2017 etc all such watershed years that they need to be there?

One year is ideal. Maybe two in order to show a specific change. Wizmut (talk) 08:25, 18 December 2023 (UTC)