FACTBOX: Facts about world's refugee population

(Reuters) - The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which marks World Refugee Day on June 20, says the global refugee population rose 14 percent last year, mainly due to a rapid exodus from Iraq.

Here are some facts provided by the UNHCR about refugees, internally displaced people, asylum-seekers and stateless people around the world in 2006 (latest figures in brackets for Iraq):

REFUGEES

Total - 9.9 million (not including 4.3 million Palestinian refugees cared for by another U.N. agency, UNRWA). This was a 14 percent rise on 2005, due mainly to 1.2 million Iraqi refugees and a revised estimate of the refugee population in the United States. The Iraqi refugee total has since risen to 2.2 million.

TOP COUNTRIES OF ORIGIN

Afghanistan - 2.1 million

Iraq - 1.5 million (now 2.2 million)

Sudan - 686,000

Somalia - 460,000

Democratic Republic of the Congo - about 400,000

Burundi - about 400,000

MAIN COUNTRIES OF ASYLUM

Pakistan - 1 million

Iran - 968,000

United States - 844,000

Syria - 702,000 (now 1.4 million)