Move Very Far

If you were to leave your home country, how far would you go, and for what reason? Just over the nearest border? Across an ocean? Or to the other side of the world?

People often equate international migration with long journeys. But most migrants actually travel shorter distances, as you might expect if you put yourself into their situation.

Understanding migration patterns helps governments around the world plan for population and economic changes.

This article addresses a simple but important question: how far do international migrants usually move from their home countries?

But before we look at how far migrants travel, it’s useful to keep in mind that most people don’t move to a different country. 96% of the world’s population lives in the country where they were born. That means the people we’ll focus on here are a small fraction of the global population.

Two examples: Syria and Venezuela
Syria and Venezuela are two recent examples of countries with large-scale emigration, but for very different reasons — one caused by war, the other by economic collapse and political instability.

Since the start of its civil war in 2011, Syria has become a well-known case of large-scale emigration. By 2020, nearly half (48%) of all Syrian-born people — about 8.5 million — had left the country.

While we don’t have precise data on how far each migrant traveled, we do have reliable estimates of the countries they moved to. This data is published by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

As you can see on the chart, most Syrian emigrants have stayed close to home. The chart below shows Turkey, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia as the top destinations, with Turkey alone hosting nearly 40% of them. Overall, a large majority of Syrian emigrants — 80% — have remained within Asia.