The United States hosted, by far, the highest number of immigrants in the world in 2024. That year, there were over ** million people born outside of the States residing in the country. Germany and Saudi Arabia followed behind at around **** and **** million, respectively. There are varying reasons for people to emigrate from their country of origin, from poverty and unemployment to war and persecution. American Migration People migrate to the United States for a variety of reasons, from job and educational opportunities to family reunification. Overall, in 2021, most people that became legal residents of the United States did so for family reunification purposes, totaling ******* people that year. An additional ******* people became legal residents through employment opportunities. In terms of naturalized citizenship, ******* people from Mexico became naturalized American citizens in 2021, followed by people from India, the Philippines, Cuba, and China. German Migration Behind the United States, Germany also has a significant migrant population. Migration to Germany increased during the mid-2010's, in light of the Syrian Civil War and refugee crisis, and during the 2020’s, in light of conflict in Afghanistan and Ukraine. Moreover, as German society continues to age, there are less workers in the labor market. In a low-migration scenario, Germany will have **** million skilled workers by 2040, compared to **** million by 2040 in a high-migration scenario. In both scenarios, this is still a decrease from **** skilled workers in 2020.

The statistic depicts the most popular immigration destinations among Chinese millionaires as of 2017, by region of origin. In 2017, about **** percent of respondents from Southeast China preferred Los Angeles as an immigration destination.

Continuous Population Statistics: Immigration from abroad, by quarter and country of birth (top 3 countries). Quarterly. Provinces.

Debates about migration are often in the news. People quote numbers about how many people are entering and leaving different countries. Governments need to plan and manage public resources based on how their own populations are changing.

Informed discussions and effective policymaking rely on good migration data. But how much do we really know about migration, and where do estimates come from?

In this article, I look at how countries and international agencies define different forms of migration, how they estimate the number of people moving in and out of countries, and how accurate these estimates are.

Migrants without legal status make up a small portion of the overall immigrant population. Most high-income countries and some middle-income ones have a solid understanding of how many immigrants live there. Tracking the exact flows of people moving in and out is trickier, but governments can reliably monitor long-term trends to understand the bigger picture.

Who is considered an international migrant? In the United Nations statistics, an international migrant is defined as “a person who moves to a country other than that of his or her usual residence for at least a year, so that the country of destination effectively becomes his or her new country of usual residence”.1

For example, an Argentinian person who spends nine months studying in the United States wouldn’t count as a long-term immigrant in the US. But an Argentinian person who moves to the US for two years would. Even if someone gains citizenship in their new country, they are still considered an immigrant in migration statistics.

The same applies in reverse for emigrants: someone leaving their home country for more than a year is considered a long-term emigrant for the country they’ve left. This does not change if they acquire citizenship in another country. Some national governments may have definitions that differ from the UN recommendations.

What about illegal migration? “Illegal migration” refers to the movement of people outside the legal rules for entering or leaving a country. There isn’t a single agreed-upon definition, but it generally involves people who breach immigration laws. Some refer to this as irregular or unauthorized migration.

There are three types of migrants who don’t have a legal immigration status. First, those who cross borders without the right legal permissions. Second, those who enter a country legally but stay after their visa or permission expires. Third, some migrants have legal permission to stay but work in violation of employment restrictions — for example, students who work more hours than their visa allows.

Tracking illegal migration is difficult. In regions with free movement, like the European Union, it’s particularly challenging. For example, someone could move from Germany to France, live there without registering, and go uncounted in official migration records.2 The rise of remote work has made it easier for people to live in different countries without registering as employees or taxpayers.

This statistic ranks the top ten immigration countries in 2010. That year, the U.S. was the largest immigration country with a total of **** million immigrants.

Canada’s appeal as an immigration destination has been increasing over the past two decades, with a total of 464,265 people immigrating to the country in 2024. This figure is an increase from 2000-2001, when approximately 252,527 immigrants came to Canada. Immigration to the Great White North Between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023, there were an estimated 199,297 immigrants to Ontario, making it the most popular immigration destination out of any province. While the number of immigrants has been increasing over the years, in 2024 over half of surveyed Canadians believed that there were too many immigrants in the country. However, in 2017, the Canadian government announced its aim to significantly increase the number of permanent residents to Canada in order to combat an aging workforce and the decline of working-age adults. Profiles of immigrants to Canada The gender of immigrants to Canada in 2023 was just about an even split, with 234,279 male immigrants and 234,538 female immigrants. In addition, most foreign-born individuals in Canada came from India, followed by China and the Philippines. The United States was the fifth most common origin country for foreign-born residents in Canada.

International migration is up 27% in the last decade, with most people moving from the developing world to countries with larger economies.

This horizontal bar chart displays net migration (people) by countries yearly using the aggregation sum in Spain. The data is about countries per year.

Continuous Population Statistics: Emigration abroad, by quarter and country of birth (top 10 countries). Quarterly. National.

United States Immigrants Admitted: All Countries data was reported at 1,127,167.000 Person in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 1,183,505.000 Person for 2016. United States Immigrants Admitted: All Countries data is updated yearly, averaging 451,510.000 Person from Sep 1900 (Median) to 2017, with 118 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1,827,167.000 Person in 1991 and a record low of 23,068.000 Person in 1933. United States Immigrants Admitted: All Countries data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by US Department of Homeland Security. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.G087: Immigration.

Inspiration

Inspired by another Kaggle user who did a similar project with Indian emigrants (https://www.kaggle.com/rajacsp/indian-migration-history)

Content

Data sourced from World Bank database at https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/dataset/global-bilateral-migration-database. In addition to selecting the decades from 1960-2000, I added a "Total" column and a least squares regression rate column. The original CSV (SG_IMMIGRANTS.csv) is a bit messy and contains a lot of blanks because ... well Singapore is a small country.

For the two limited "melted" versions, I used pandas pd.melt() to restructure the different decades into a new column "Year" with it's corresponding "Total". Only a select few countries with substantial number of total immigrants are included (Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand, Philippines, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, United Kingdom). Here, the ratio refers to either the ratio of gender to decade's total or the ratio of that decade's total to the country's all-time cumulative total . e.g. Male 1960 CHN Ratio =0.510563203 means males made up 51% of the total Chinese immigrants to SG in 1960 e.g. Total 1960 MYS Ratio = 0.081202409 means 1960 contributed only 8% of the total Malaysian immigrants to SG

Hope this is clear, leave a comment if anything needs clarification!

Thoughts/to-do:

Future version with global database csv, SG emigrants csv For select top origin/destination countries, show a positive-negative bar plot, coloured according to immigration/emigration multiple

Migrants from the United Kingdom have long been Australia’s primary immigrant group and in 2023 there were roughly 960 thousand English-born people living in Australia. India and China held second and third place respectively with regard to Australia’s foreign-born population. The relative dominance of Asian countries in the list of top ten foreign-born residents of Australia represents a significant shift in Australia’s immigration patterns over the past few decades. Where European-born migrants had previously overshadowed other migrant groups, Australian migration figures are now showing greater migration numbers from neighboring countries in Asia and the Pacific. A history of migration Australia is often referred to as an ‘immigrant nation’, alongside the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. Before the Second World War, migrants to Australia were almost exclusively from the UK, however after 1945, Australia’s immigration policy was broadened to attract economic migrants and temporary skilled migrants. These policy changes saw and increase in immigrants particularly from Greece and Italy. Today, Australia maintains its status as an ‘’Immigrant nation’’, with almost 30 percent of the population born overseas and around 50 percent of the population having both that were born overseas. Australian visas The Australian immigration program has two main categories of visa, permanent and temporary. The permanent visa category offers three primary pathways: skilled, family and humanitarian. The skilled visa category is by far the most common, with more than a million permanent migrants living in Australia on this visa category at the last Australian census in 2021. Of the temporary visa categories, the higher education visa is the most popular, exceeding 180 thousand arrivals in 2023.

Immigration from abroad, by quarter and country of birth (top 3 countries). ECP (API identifier: 59026) | gimi9.com

The rating reflects the number of migrants in the country. It allows you to assess how attractive the country is for foreigners to live and work, as well as in terms of migration legislation.

This horizontal bar chart displays net migration (people) by country using the aggregation sum in the Americas. The data is about countries per year.

Top 10 countries of last or next residence for short-term migrants. Inflow, Outflow and Residency. Estimates from the International Passenger Survey, annual table.

Table of INEBase Immigration from abroad, by quarter and country of birth (top 10 countries). Quarterly. National. Continuous Population Statistics

This horizontal bar chart displays net migration (people) by country using the aggregation sum in Europe. The data is about countries.

This horizontal bar chart displays net migration (people) by countries yearly using the aggregation sum in Serbia. The data is about countries per year.