The number of asylum seekers in industrialised countries rose by nearly half last year, driven by the devastating conflicts in Syria and Iraq.
Their top destination, according to the United Nations' refugee agency, was Germany.
A total of 866,000 people applied for asylum in such countries in 2014, marking a 45-per cent jump from a year earlier and a 22-year high, a UNHCR report said on Thursday.
Despite numbers being at their highest in more than a decade, Australia's number of asylum seeker claims remains relatively low.
The reported number of new asylum seekers in Australia dropped by 24 per cent during 2014 (9,000 claims) compared to the previous year (11,700) - making it number 17 on the list.
"It's a very small number of a global scale. Australia's not facing the same scale of problem that other countries are," said Graeme McGregor from Amnesty International.
The surge is linked to the spiralling conflicts in Syria and Iraq, which have created "the worst humanitarian crisis of our era", UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told reporters.
Asylum claims lodged in industrialised countries from 2010 - 2014. (UNHCR)
As a sign of the crisis, the number of asylum applications last year was the second highest on record, coming very close to the all-time-high of the about 900,000 requests made in 1992, at the beginning of the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, UNHCR said.
Syria's conflict, now in its fifth year, has killed more than 215,000 people and forced 11.4 million to flee their homes, including nearly four million who have left the country. Last year, 150,000 Syrians applied for asylum in industrialised countries, marking a 166-per cent hike from 2013 and accounting for a fifth of all asylum claims, the UNHCR said.
As the violence in Syria has spilled over into neighbouring Iraq with the ruthless Islamic State jihadist group, Iraqis too have been leaving in droves.
Last year they accounted for 68,700 asylum applications to wealthy nations - almost double the number a year earlier - while Afghans made up the third largest group, with almost 60,000 applications.
The number of asylum applications from Syrians especially is expected to swell further, Fleming said, pointing out that many of the 3.9 million Syrian refugees scattered around neighbouring countries are growing weary of waiting for the conflict in their country to end.
The trend explains the sharp increase in Syrians attempting to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean, she said, urging European countries to respond.
"We need countries to step up to the plate," she said.
But the burden is spread far from evenly among the 44 industrialised countries included in the report. The top five - Germany, the United States, Turkey, Sweden and Italy - accounted for 60 per cent of all new applications last year, UNHCR said.
Asylum claims submitted in 10 major receiving countries (UNHCR)
Germany clearly topped the list, alone receiving a fifth of all applications last year, at 173,000 requests. A quarter were from Syrians, the report said.
The United States counted 121,200 claims, mainly from Mexicans. Turkey, which by the end of 2014 was hosting more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees, meanwhile received 87,800 new requests last year, mainly from Iraqis.
Syrians, who have been flooding into the country, are not counted in the asylum application statistics, since they are automatically granted temporary residency.
Sweden ranked fourth at 75,100 applications, mainly from Syrians and Eritreans, but topped the list relative to its population size. Over the past five years, the Scandinavian country has counted on average 24.4 asylum seekers per 1000 inhabitants.
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