How has the political instability in Syria affected the country's demography? Most Syrians who fled their country have settled as refugees is mostly Southwest Asia and South Asia. Population growth rates are low due to the population loss, but Syria still maintains a positive growth rate. Even though there has been a lot of population loss, Syria's extremely high birth rate has offset the population change so population growth rates are still high. Syria's population growth rate has dropped to a negative value and most of those fleeing have settled in neighboring countries and Europe. The United States and the United Kingdom received very high numbers of Syrian refugees in 2016