Data Viz

The World's Migration Corridors — Where 300 Million People Moved From, and To (1990–2024)

Trace UN migrant-stock estimates along lines from country of origin to current country of residence. The lines show people living outside their country of origin at each date—not moves made during that year.

Drag the trend chart to change the year, then select a country on the map or by search

International migrants worldwide in 2024
304M 304,021,813
Share in the top 10 corridors
12.9% With a named counterpart: 282M (92.7% of world total)

International migrant stock worldwide

1990–2024, every five years (four for the final interval)

304M
Sex

Global migration corridors

Lines run from origin to residence. The arrow points to the destination, and width represents people—not line length or distance. Select a country to keep only its lines.

Top corridors

Line width represents approximate population. Line length and distance do not affect width (read exact values in the list)

The bow separates the two directions of a pair — it is not the route people took.

Lines show recorded pairs only. No line does not mean zero movement.

Regions in this color are not included as countries in this dataset (Antarctica, territories, and disputed areas). This does not mean that no migrants live there.

Top 25 corridors in 2024

Shared bar maximum: 12 million

  1. 1
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  4. 4 †
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  8. 8 †
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  20. 20
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Source & data notes

These statistics are estimates that align national censuses, population registers, and other sources to common reference dates. The displayed counts are estimates, not direct tallies.

Countries use different definitions of “migrant.” Citizenship-based counts can include second-generation residents and are not equivalent to foreign-born counts.

Historical stock is reconstructed using current borders. A person may therefore be counted as a migrant because a border changed even when that person did not cross one.

Aggregate totals whose counterpart country is unknown are retained and shown as “not broken down” in each country panel.

9 countries or territories without map boundaries remain available in search and lists but cannot be drawn on the map.

Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2024). International Migrant Stock 2024 / License: CC BY 3.0 IGO / Retrieved: 2026-07-29 / Processed for this visualization