Visualizing the World’s Busiest Migration Corridors 🧳

What we’re showing

This graphic ranks the world’s busiest international migration corridors, based on data from the UN IOM World Migration Report 2024. 

A corridor represents the number of international migrants born in the first-mentioned country that are currently residing in the second country.

Corridors shown in red are classified by the UN as mainly comprising of displaced people. This includes people who have fled their home due to conflict or fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, or political opinion.

Key takeaways

• Mexico to the U.S. is the top corridor by a huge margin. Due to large number of people who enter the U.S. undocumented, this figure could be even higher in reality.
• Nearly four million people have fled Syria for Türkiye, highlighting the devastating impact of war.

Russia & Ukraine

Based on this dataset, a similar number of people moved between Ukraine and Russia:

• Russia to Ukraine: 3.4 million
• Ukraine to Russia: 3.7 million

Note that the UN does not consider either of these corridors as mainly comprising of displaced people.