The U.S. saw a nearly 27 percent increase in new applications within a year | Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty Images US tops Germany as country with most new asylum requests While applications have decreased in parts of Europe, they have continued to rise in North America.

Germany is no longer the largest recipient of new asylum applications worldwide, according to the United Nations: the U.S. is.

A report released Tuesday by the U.N. Refugee Agency showed that the number of new, individual asylum applicants plummeted drastically by 73 percent in Germany between 2016 and 2017, from 722,400 down to 198,300.

Meanwhile, the U.S. saw a nearly 27 percent increase in new applications within a year, reaching 331,700 in 2017. This was the first time since 2012 when the U.S. was the largest recipient of new asylum applications.

Germany’s sharp drop in new asylum seekers has been attributed to the closure of a route through the Balkans commonly taken to reach the country at the height of the refugee crisis in 2015, as well as an EU migration deal agreed with Turkey in 2016.

Meanwhile, more people last year from parts of North and Central America “undertook the perilous journey northwards to seek asylum in Mexico and the United States of America,” the U.N. report said.

Worldwide, the report said that forced displacement reached a new high last year for the fifth year in a row, including 25.4 million refugees and 40 million internally displaced people.

“We are at a watershed, where success in managing forced displacement globally requires a new and far more comprehensive approach so that countries and communities aren’t left dealing with this alone,” said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, in a statement.

Turkey continued to host the highest number of refugees in terms of absolute numbers with 3.5 million people total, mainly Syrians. Lebanon had the largest number of refugees relative to its national population: 164 refugees per 1,000 inhabitants.