Maps of World Refugees Available from Ball State University Libraries

Maps in the News: World Refugees

The map shown above is part of a feature on world refugees from The State of the World Atlas. The atlas was created by Dan Smith in 2008 and is available from Ball State University Libraries’ GIS Research and Map Collection (GRMC) or from the Atlas Collection on the second floor of Bracken Library.

The map shows some of the areas of the world affected by the 14 million refugees worldwide. The bright red countries at the top host from 100,000 to one million refugees. The darker red countries on the bottom map show countries that have over one million internally displaced people—people who have fled their homes but remain in their own countries. For example, Colombia has 3 million internally displaced people, while Iraq has 1.8 million. These maps were created using data from 2006.

The atlas explains that “unsatisfactory and inconsistent statistics” exist to describe the plight of refugees. “While a well-respected independent U.S. organization counts 99 countries as hosting refugees, the U.N. identifies 163 host countries.” The population of refugees includes Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans and people from countries in Africa, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, and Somalia.

For more information about using atlases, please contact the GRMC Monday through Friday from 8:00 to 5:00 at 765-285-1097.