Drag the timeline to watch the continents pull apart from Pangaea, then follow people out of Africa, across oceans and borders, up to where the world's 304 million migrants live today.
Deep oceanShallow seaLowlandUplandMountains
Early human dispersalFarmers, seafarers, herdersForced migrationMass & labour migrationDiaspora (by origin)Migrants hostedClick a circle to map one country
Layers:
Migration now
Who has moved, and where they live
304Minternational migrants, 3.7% of humanityUN DESA · mid-2024
167.7Mmigrant workers in the global labour forceIOM WMR 2026
117.8Mforcibly displaced, the first fall in a decadeUNHCR · end-2025
$905Bin remittances, $685B of it to low- and middle-income countriesWorld Bank via IOM · 2024
80,000+migrant deaths and disappearances recorded since 2014, 7,900+ in 2025IOM Missing Migrants Project
Country explorer
Where people born here live, 2024
Where its foreign-born residents come from, 2024
Largest diasporas
People born in each country, living abroad · millions · UN DESA 2024
Where migrants live
Foreign-born residents · millions · UN DESA 2024
20 biggest country corridors
People born in the first country living in the second · millions · UN DESA 2024 (flows within one country and its territories, such as China → Hong Kong, are left out)
Biggest regional corridors
Millions · UN DESA 2024
Global migrant stock
Millions · UN DESA via IOM World Migration Report 2026, Table 1
Money sent home
Top recipients · US$ billions · World Bank 2024. In 2025 India passed $150B (IOM WMR 2026).
Top senders · US$ billions · 2025 (IOM WMR 2026)
About the map: from 300 to about 2 million years ago the map shows the PALEOMAP paleo-elevation models of Scotese and Wright (2018), one every 5 million years, blended in between. They show where land, shallow seas and mountains were at each time, at 1° resolution. Reconstructions before about 200 million years ago are less certain because the seafloor that recorded plate motions has since been destroyed. After that, the map uses today's coastlines; ice-age sea levels are not drawn. Prehistoric routes are generalized paths through dated archaeological and genetic sites, and several dates, especially the first arrivals in Australia and the Americas, are still debated.