Submitted by Taps Coogan on the 29th of January 2018 to The Sounding Line.

The following video-graphic, from Max Galka’s Metrocosm, shows the origins of America’s lawful immigration since 1820. Max Galka notes:

“From 1820 to 2013, 79 million people obtained lawful permanent resident status in the United States. The interactive map below visualizes all of them based on their prior country of residence. The brightness of a country corresponds to its total migration to the U.S. at the given time.”

“Through most of the 1800’s, immigration came predominantly from Western Europe (Ireland, Germany, the U.K.). Toward the end of the century, countries further east in Europe (Italy, Russia, Hungary) took over as the largest source of migration. Beginning in the early 1900’s, most immigrants arrived from the Americas (Canada, Mexico). And the last few decades have seen a rise in migration from Asia.”

Strikingly, the video shows how the sources of lawful immigration to the US have become increasingly diversified. Until the second half of the 20th century, only a handful of countries were significant sources of immigration at any given time. In the last several decades, the significant sources of immigration have grown from a changing handful of countries to virtually every country in the world simultaneously.

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