Skip to content
Nations Inquiry — home

Data for 2020

Emigrants, 2020

2020, as UN DESA Population Division’s 2024 release gives it · stored as published, never rewritten

This is the number of people from each country who live in another — international migrants counted by where they come from rather than where they live. It is the mirror of the migrants a country hosts, and covers everyone abroad, from students and workers to refugees.

Emigrants, 2020 covers 221 countries on 2 measures. India is highest, at 16,532,761; Vatican City is lowest, at 284. The middle country reads 424,072. Against 2015, 221 values changed (178 up, 43 down), the same countries are covered.

Download CSVCite this year
Share

Share this page

Emigrants · Data for 2020

HighestIndia

16,532,761

LowestVatican City

284

Shaded by value in five groups of equal size, darkest at the highest end.

01Values only

The table

Every country and every column of Emigrants, 2020, as published. The file carries values only, so no position is shown. “=” marks a shared position.

Showing 25 of 221 countries · select a heading to sort

Emigrants, 2020: every country, as published by UN DESA Population Division.
IndiaINDSouthern Asia16,532,76135.45169
MexicoMEXCentral America11,452,71748.57155
ChinaCHNEastern Asia11,169,86856.25364
RussiaRUSEastern Europe8,747,39658.78197
SyriaSYRWestern Asia8,652,20246.38323
BangladeshBGDSouthern Asia8,085,34727.61958
PhilippinesPHLSouth-eastern Asia6,461,08657.01467
PakistanPAKSouthern Asia6,372,46729.50584
AfghanistanAFGSouthern Asia5,729,88745.35973
VenezuelaVENSouth America5,477,19851.14358
United KingdomGBRNorthern Europe4,710,57948.35478
EgyptEGYNorthern Africa4,454,27729.02154
PolandPOLEastern Europe4,365,87953.04139
UkraineUKREastern Europe4,353,03157.02018
GermanyDEUWestern Europe4,204,44152.98286
RomaniaROUEastern Europe4,191,02252.58013
PalestinePSEWestern Asia4,072,90446.04501
MyanmarMMRSouth-eastern Asia3,611,60338.50639
IndonesiaIDNSouth-eastern Asia3,446,73646.86689
VietnamVNMSouth-eastern Asia3,330,40451.45081
MoroccoMARNorthern Africa3,293,17047.58318
ColombiaCOLSouth America3,165,29354.78406
United StatesUSANorthern America3,082,35949.30000
KazakhstanKAZCentral Asia3,029,56653.48578
ItalyITASouthern Europe2,886,48145.77761

02In 2020

At either end

The 5 countries at each end of the headline, then the highest and lowest on each other measure.

Highest

  1. India16,532,761
  2. Mexico11,452,717
  3. China11,169,868
  4. Russia8,747,396
  5. Syria8,652,202

Lowest

  1. Vatican City284
  2. Liechtenstein314
  3. Channel Islands320
  4. Marshall Islands387
  5. Gibraltar494

Neither end is better. The values describe a shape, not a score. The middle country reads 424,072. “Shared” marks a value another country also holds.

Each measure’s ends

  • Women among these emigrants (%)

    HighestBahrain62.76568

    LowestLiechtenstein13.37580

    Middle country: 50.34063

032015 → 2020

Since 2015

  • +0 / −0countries joined / left
  • 221values changed, of 221 in both
  • 178 · 43rose · fell
  • 0unchanged

Rose most

  • Venezuela760,196 → 5,477,198+4,717,002
  • Syria5,981,460 → 8,652,202+2,670,742
  • South Sudan853,845 → 2,374,400+1,520,555
  • India15,277,263 → 16,532,761+1,255,498
  • Myanmar2,517,411 → 3,611,603+1,094,192

Fell most

  • Mexico12,184,226 → 11,452,717−731,509
  • Kazakhstan3,348,874 → 3,029,566−319,308
  • Ukraine4,644,011 → 4,353,031−290,980
  • Belarus1,079,713 → 919,469−160,244
  • South Korea2,162,256 → 2,038,995−123,261

04Caveats

Read before you use

How values are stored

  • One year of the 2024 release

    Every year in this series comes from UN DESA Population Division’s 2024 release, recalculated on one method, so a change from one year to the next is not a revision. It can differ from what was first published for 2020.

  • Nothing missing

    Every one of the 221 countries has every column.

05The files

Download and cite

Licence in full

What this site changed: Reshaped to one row per country, with its ISO code; no value recalculated, rescaled or rounded. In full

Licence: CC BY 3.0 IGO · what it allows, in plain words

Cite this edition

UN DESA Population Division (2020). Emigrants, 2020 [data set], describing 2020. As held by Nations Inquiry, https://nationsinquiry.com/datasets/emigrants/2020

068 held

Other years