Foreign born


Foreign-born people are those born outside of their country of residence. Foreign born are often non-citizens, but many are naturalized citizens of the country in which they live, and others are citizens by descent, typically through a parent.
The term foreign born encompasses both immigrants and expatriates but is not synonymous with either. Foreign born may, like immigrants, have committed to living in a country permanently or, like expatriates, live abroad for a significant period with the plan to return to their birth-country eventually.
The status of foreign born — particularly their access to citizenship — differs globally. The large groups of foreign-born guest workers in Arab states of the Persian Gulf, for example, have no right to citizenship no matter the length of their residence. In the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the United States, by contrast, foreign born are often citizens or in the process of becoming citizens. Certain countries have intermediary rules: in Germany and Japan it is often difficult but not impossible for the foreign born to become citizens.

Definition

The adjective foreign-born has two potential meanings:
The United Nations uses the first definition to estimate the international migrant stock, whenever this information is available. In countries lacking data on place of birth, the UN uses the country of citizenship instead.
On the other hand, the United States Census Bureau defines foreign-born as "anyone who is not a U.S. citizen at birth", which includes persons who have become U.S. citizens through naturalization but excludes persons born abroad to a U.S. citizen parent or parents.
According to the UN: "Equating international migrants with foreign citizens when estimating the migrant stock has important shortcomings. In countries where citizenship is conferred on the basis of jus sanguinis, people who were born in the country of residence may be included in the number of international migrants even though they may have never lived abroad. Conversely, persons who were born abroad and who naturalized in their country of residence are excluded from the stock of international migrants when using citizenship as the criterion to define international migrants."

Trends by country

The percentage of foreign born in a country is the product mostly of immigration rates, but is also affected by emigration rates and birth and death rates in the destination country. For example, the United Kingdom and Ireland are destination countries for migrants from Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia, but are themselves source countries for immigration to other English-speaking countries. The countries with the highest rates of immigration are wealthy countries with relatively open nationality or migration laws, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Persian Gulf states.
The largest foreign-born population in the world is in the United States, which was home to 39 million foreign-born residents in 2012, or 12.6% of the population. The highest percentage of foreign-born residents occurs in small, wealthy countries with large numbers of temporary foreign workers, such as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar; the population of each is, depending on the economy at the time, around 80%. In 2010, the Migration Policy Institute reported that the largest percentages were Qatar and UAE.

Cities with largest foreign born populations

Metropolitan and Urban regions with largest foreign born populations

  1. Data for the cities listed below is from numerous sources.
RankCityCountryForeign-Born PopulationSources of Immigrants
1New York metropolitan area5,656,000
2Los Angeles metropolitan area4,421,000
3London and Home Counties4,051,502
4Greater Toronto2,842,445
5Hong Kong 2,793,450
6San Francisco Bay Area2,634,270
7Paris metropolitan area2,429,223
8Sydney Greater Capital City Statistical Area2,071,872
9Miami metropolitan area1,949,629
10Melbourne Greater Capital City Statistical Area1,801,139
11Chicago metropolitan area1,625,649
12Brussels Urban Area1,441,600
13Berlin Urban Area1,231,500
14Singapore 1,305,011
15Moscow 1,128,035

16Houston metropolitan area1,113,875
17Metropolitan Dubai1,056,000
18Riyadh 1,054,000
19Vancouver metropolitan area1,019,170
20Washington metropolitan area1,017,432
21Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex1,016,221
22Frankfurt Urban Area998,400
23Tokyo Urban Area978,172
24Barcelona Urban Area862,200
25Atlanta metropolitan area792,208
26Montreal Urban Area740,400
27Brisbane Greater Capital City Statistical Area731,198
28Auckland Urban Area662,298
29Stockholm County616,558
30Muscat Urban Area576,000
31Milan Urban Area475,000
32Greater Manchester302,000
33Lyon Urban Area241,000
34Helsinki213,290
35Geneva77,602
36Luxembourg City70,783