Macroscope
RU

Wars and refugees

Pick a country and switch indicators on: they all line up on one time axis. You can see what changed together, what came first, where official forecasts point and how far past ones missed. Under the chart: observations computed from what is on screen.

Deaths in conflictspersons a year3,449 deaths 2025
025k50k75k
Refugees from the countrypersons, end of year4.87M 2025
02M4M6M
Populationpersons, 1 July23.6M 2023
15M20M
actual

Without JavaScript you see a ready view: Syria — Deaths in organised violence, Refugees from the country, Population, 1990–2025. Every country has its own page that works without JavaScript (list below); the data is in the API.

How the indicators changed

  • Deaths in conflicts: on average 0 deaths in the 1990s, 1 deaths in the 2000s, 39,826 deaths in the 2010s, 3,100 deaths in the 2020s.
  • Refugees from the country: 2.15k in 1990, 4.87M in 2025. Peak: 6.85M in 2021; the latest value is 29% lower. The trend broke around 2011 and 2017: +0.51k → +1.15M → −151k a year.
  • Population: 12.6M in 1990 → 23.6M in 2023 (+88%). The trend broke around 2011 and 2017: +499k → −628k → +769k a year.

How the indicators relate

  • Deaths in conflicts and refugees from the country (1990–2025, 36 years): levels are barely related (r = 0.36); year-to-year changes show no reliable link (r = 0.20).
  • Deaths in conflicts and population (1990–2023, 34 years): levels are barely related (r = 0.32); year-to-year changes show no reliable link (r = −0.19).

Wars and births

  • War of 2011–2024 on the country's territory (UCDP/PRIO; about 344 thousand battle deaths). Against peace-time countries whose fertility was close the year before the war (Laos, Guatemala, Eswatini, Lesotho, Oman and 5 more), net of each country's pre-war trend: births during the war −40%; fertility (children per woman) during the war −0.16. The war lasted more than 10 years: its first 10 years are compared, the years after it are not (the pre-war trend is too old).
  • All wars together: of 101 wars on countries' territory since 1955, births 1–5 years after the end were above comparable peace-time countries in 42% of cases (median −1.6%). No significant post-war rise shows up.

Moving together in time does not prove a cause: incomes, cities, education and the era itself act on many indicators at once. These observations suggest where to look, not what causes what.

Key findings

  • UN projection of 2024: in 33 of 42 countries that already report 2024–2025 data, births are below the medium variant; in 8, below the lower bound of the 95% interval.
  • Japan: 709k births in 2024 (including children of foreign nationals). Even the latest official projection (IPSS 2023, medium) expected this level only in 2042, 18 years later. An earlier projection (IPSS 2002, medium) expected it in 2045.
  • Taiwan: 108k births in 2025. Even the latest official projection (NDC 2024, medium) expected this level only in 2036, 11 years later. An earlier projection (NDC 2016, medium) expected it in 2057.
  • China: 7.92M births in 2025. Even the latest official projection (UN WPP 2024, medium) expected this level only in 2050, 25 years later. An earlier projection (UN WPP 2022, medium) expected it in 2054.
  • United States: 1.60 children per woman in 2024. The SSA 2015 projection assumed 2.04 for that year, a gap of −22%.
  • South Korea: 0.80 children per woman in 2025. Projections made before 2020 expected 1.00–1.38 for 2025, while the 2021 and 2023 projections turned out lower than reality: fertility rose slightly in 2024–2025. Errors go both ways.
  • World: 67% of people live in countries with fertility below replacement (2.1), 31% below 1.5. World population is still growing: the UN expects a peak of about 10.3B in 2084.

All forecast-vs-actual checks →

How it works

  • A source for every number. Links go to the primary publication: the statistical office, the UN, the projection archive.
  • Forecast against fact. Next to a figure: what official projections expected for it and how far reality departed.
  • Association is not cause. Moving together in time suggests where to look; the observations under the chart always say so and check a link not only in levels but also in year-to-year changes.
  • Open data. Every table is available as CSV and JSON to check, recompute and reuse.
  • For programs and AI agents. The same data through an API and an MCP server, no page scraping: how to connect.

Data as of 7 October 2026

Country pages

Each country has a page that works without JavaScript: key indicators, observations, past UN and IMF forecasts against actual data, every series with source links. Countries →