15.3.1
What is the difference between an emigrant and
an immigrant? When people move from one country to live in another, they are considered to be both emigrants and immigrants . They are emigrating, or ‘exiting’ from, their country of origin, and immigrating, or ‘moving into’, their destination country. For example, a person moving from Thailand to live in Australia would be emigrating from Thailand and immigrating to Australia. In this scenario, Thailand is the country of origin (sometimes called the donor country) while Australia is the destination country (sometimes called the host country). 15.3.2 Where are people moving to and from internationally? FIGURE1 lists the top 20 destinations of international migrants as well as the top 20 countries of origin. In 2020, the United States of America was the most popular destination for international migrants, while the highest number of migrants were coming from India. Australia was a top ten destination for migrants in 2020. Some countries feature on both lists. Annual net migration takes into account the difference between the number of people who move to a country and the number of people who leave it over the course of a year. FIGURE2 provides a global picture of annual net migration from 2015 to 2020. Countries in green are those that received more immigrants (people arriving) than they had emigrants (people leaving), whereas the opposite occurred in countries that are red. If more people arrive than leave, this is called positive net migration; if more people leave than arrive, this is called negative net migration.
FIGURE2 Annual Net Migration rate, 2015–20
ARCTIC OCEAN
PACIFIC
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
OCEAN
INDIAN
OCEAN
Migration per 1000 population
-20 -10
-5 0
5 10 20
No data
0 2000 4000 km
Source: Based on data from United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2019). World Population Prospects 2019, Online Edition. Rev. 1. Map redrawn by Spatial Vision.
TOPIC15 Changing nations – urbanisation and migration 427
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