At 17.5 million, Indians largest migrant community in world

The number of migrants globally reached an estimated 272 million, with India being the leading country in terms of the origin of international migrants in 2019 having 17.5 million persons living abroad, according to new estimates released by the United Nations.

The dataset, 'The International Migrant Stock 2019', gives the latest estimates of the number of international migrants by age, sex and origin for all nations across the globe.

The estimates are based on official national statistics on the foreign-born or the foreign population obtained from population censuses, population registers or nationally representative surveys.

According to the report, the top 10 countries of origin account for one-third of all international migrants.

Mexico comes second in the list of origin of international migrants with 11.8 million diaspora, and China third with 10.7 million. Russia has 10.5 million people living abroad, followed by Syria (8.2 million), Bangladesh (7.8 million), Pakistan (6.3 million), Ukraine (5.9 million), the Philippines (5.4 million) and Afghanistan (5.1 million).

India hosted 5.1 million international migrants in 2019, less than 2015's 5.2 million. International migrants as a share of the total population in India was steady at 0.4 percent from 2010 to 2019.

The country hosted 207,000 refugees, the report said adding that refugees as a share of international migrants in the country were four percent. Among the international migrants in the country, the female population was 48.8 percent and the median age of international migrants was 47.1 years. In India, the highest number of international migrants came from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal.

In 2019, regionally, Europe hosted the largest number of international migrants (82 million), followed by Northern America (59 million) and Northern Africa and Western Asia (49 million).

At the country level, about half of all international migrants reside in just 10 countries, with the United States of America hosting the largest number of international migrants (51 million), equal to about 19 percent of the world's total.

Germany and Saudi Arabia host the second and third largest numbers of migrants (13 million each), followed by Russia (12 million), the United Kingdom (10 million), the United Arab Emirates (9 million), France, Canada and Australia (around 8 million each) and Italy (6 million).