Data for this map was obtained from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. Eurostat records asylum applications when refugees are initially processed after entering a country. Data was included for all EU Member States, Schengen Area Member States, and candidates to the Schengen Area.

Yearly and monthly records of asylum applications starting in 2008 was available from Eurostat. Eurostat allows users to filter this data by country of origin, host country, and other demographic details including age and gender of asylum applicants.

Yearly population data was also available from Eurostat and was used to calculate the proportion of Syrian asylum applicants to total population.

Eurostat is a very robust data source. However, acknowledging the complexities of data in this context, there may be some uncertainties regarding the exact number of asylum applications by state. If refugees are not formally processed, for example, they would not be recorded in this statistic. Generally, this data should still be regarded as highly accurate.