Countries hosting Syrian refugees

BY Matt Rehbein

Published July 28, 2018

The Syrian civil war has displaced millions of people since it began roughly seven years ago. Most of those forced from their homes remained in Syria, but millions have fled to other countries.

The majority of international Syrian refugees are in nearby countries. Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan host about 3.4 million, 1 million and 650,000, respectively, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

I wanted to explore how the world's wealthier nations -- a measure I'm defining for the purposes of this exercise by GDP and GDP per capita -- are responding to the sprawling Syrian crisis in terms of the number of refugees they are hosting. All of the data presented here are as of 2017.

First off, let's look at the 10 countries hosting the most Syrian refugees, regardless of their economic portfolios.

Now let's get some idea of the economic profile of the countries opening their doors to Syrian refugees.

Here's a closer look at just how many refugees live in the countries with the top-ten biggest economies, starting with the number-one ranked US and going down in order.

The distribution spreads out a bit when we shift to GDP per capita, but mostly it's the cast that changes.

And again a closer look at just how many Syrian refugees live in top-ten ranked countries by GDP per capita, again starting at number one and working our way down.