The UNHCR Asylum Trends 2014 report shows inter alia that:

• An estimated 866,000 asylum applications were recorded in the course of the year, some 269,400 claims more than the year before (+45%).
• Syrians were by far the largest group among those seeking asylum in 2014, with almost 150,000 applications, one in every five asylum claims in the industrialized world. Iraquis were the second largest group and Afghans the third one, followed by citizens of Serbia (and Kosovo) and Eritreans.
• The number of Ukrainians seeking asylum in the 44 countries included in the report went up from 1,400 in 2013 to 15,700 in 2014.
• The industrialized country receiving the largest number of asylum-seekers in 2014 was Germany, with more than 173,000 applications. The United States ranked second (with an estimated 121,200 asylum claims), Turkey ranked third (with 87,800 new asylum applications in 2014), and Sweden ranked fourth (with 75,100 applications) among the 44 industrialized countries. The top five receiving countries (Germany, the United States, Turkey, Sweden and Italy), for example, accounted for 60 per cent of all new asylum claims.
• Relative to the size of its population, Sweden is the country with the largest number of asylum seekers (24.4 asylum seekers per 1,000 inhabitants on average, during the last five years), followed by Malta, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Montenegro.

Please read more in the press release, the report and annexes on the website of UNHCR.