I found this cool interactive map (I’m pretty certain this is the same) a few years ago. I don’t always bookmark things and sometimes I bookmark and then purge indiscriminately because I’ve kept too many overly specific or no longer applicable things and so lose some good things. I was starting to be afraid I couldn’t find it again.

This map lets you change incoming (emigration) or outgoing (immigration) which distinction I think I was researching and caused me to find the map in the first place as well as the country. These are totals for 1990 – 2017. I think you could probably pull recent years from Pew and/or the UN although I wish they’d update this actual map because it’s cool.

So for example, the top destination for people leaving the UK is Australia, I think I may have heard that it was popular but it’s a HUGE number and quite a big distance between that and the next destination which is the U.S. with Canada in a much closer 3rd.

And then you can switch to incoming to see those countries, which for the UK were Poland, India, and Pakistan. With the history, the later two aren’t surprising, I guess Poland is just, eh, not surprised but not unsurprised.

The U.S. incoming is Mexico by the largest percentage I’ve seen which makes sense, next is China and India, I would have thought it would have been other Central and some South American countries, but maybe that is more recent or maybe it would be a top destination (I checked a few, it was top or 2nd for some) for them rather than from because China and India are the world’s largest populations and these countries aren’t.

From a 2016 article, the US/Mexico is the world’s largest migration corridor. The U.S. outgoing is Mexico (I wonder if some of those leaving are some of those who previously came because per the article net overall was negative, but I don’t know what the details are for the different maps), Canada, and UK. Not surprising.

The 2nd migration corridor, at least at the time of the article was UAE and India. I’d never heard of that, just thought tons of uber rich people went there, but they aren’t a huge percentage of the world’s population. And yes, this map shows India as top incoming for UAE and top outgoing for India (that doesn’t necessarily always match).

Another I found interesting was Germany, their top was US., Switzerland, Turkey (that surprised me but I guess historically it shouldn’t), UK, and Austria (I guess I would have thought that would be higher).

I looked at Spain and Portugal (Spain I think was 2nd for Venezuela) which don’t seem to have as strong as an Old/New world connection.

You could spend HOURS on here.

And here’s another, the change from immigration to US from Germans and highest to Mexicans, there is a map that flashes the decades from 1850 to 2010 and then 2013. It moves a little fast, but look at the different states each go round. Like the upper mid-West, the Scandinavians, the Northeast for Ireland (though they were top for more than there which surprised me) and Italy. You could spend a while on there too.

This is one thing I find fascinating on Ancestry as well. When you get your DNA information you also get some information on more specific immigration to and then migration within U.S. as well.

Also, when maps are used rather than just columns for data like this or just text in history books, I think that really helps with geography. We had a globe (outdated, still had USSR, but still), several atlases, a book of historical maps, maps in the back of the Bible for Biblical/ancient history, maps in all the history books. We were actually taught history and geography, although I think it was more human geography. I just feel like that is why my family seems to know more than the average American is purported to know, well that and interest . . .  and playing Where in the World excessively, hey whatever works. Oh, and we’re nerds.

Familiarity helps as does connotations. If history isn’t taught or taught much then geography suffers as well. And thus ends my lecture.