Today marks ‪#‎WorldRefugeeDay‬:Over 60 million persons are forcibly displaced in the world - as refugees, asylum seekers, migrants or internally displaced persons

At the end of 2015, the world had 65.3 million people who had been forcibly displaced from their homes, the highest ever number on record, according to the United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees (UNHCR), also known as the U.N. Refugee Agency. To put that number into context, sample this: The United Kingdom’s population was about 65.1 million at the end of 2015; the two largest U.S. states by population — California and Texas — taken together had about 67 million people, which accounts for more than 20 percent of the country’s total population.

The record figures for 2015 were released on June 20, which also marks World Refugee Day, and showed an increase of 5.8 million displaced people compared to the year before. The total of 65.3 million people includes internally displaced people (those who left their homes but stayed within their own country) as well as refugees seeking asylum in other countries.

About two-thirds, or 40.8 million people, were categorized as internally displaced, while almost a third, or 21.3 million, were classified as refugees. The remaining 3.2 million people were waiting for their asylum applications to be processed, mostly in Western countries. The 21.3 million figure was the highest recorded since the early 1990s, while the other two categories saw their highest numbers ever.