Chapter 6 CHAPTER 6 Stateless People 754,500 stateless persons acquired nationality in the last decade According to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, a stateless person is a “person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law.” Millions of people across the world who do not possess a nationality are stateless and consequently are often denied basic rights. UNHCR reported on a global number of 4.2 million stateless persons including those of undetermined nationality in 76 countries at the end of 2019.70 The true extent of statelessness is estimated to be much higher, as fewer than half of all countries in the world submit any data and some of the most populous countries in the world with large suspected stateless populations do not report on statelessness at all. Figure 26 displays the number of countries that reported stateless populations at the end of each year. Approximately half of all countries either report or are known to have stateless populations. Figure 26 | Number of countries reporting on stateless populations 17 19 16 17 18 23 22 22 64 72 75 77 77 75 75 78 76 '11 '12 '13 '14 '15 '16 '17 '18 '19 20 21 65 '10 Countries with known stateless populations without data Countries with data 70 Based on information provided by governments and other sources. 56 UNHCR > GLOBAL TRENDS 2019