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A diaspora ( ) is a
population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...
that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic
place of origin In Switzerland, the place of origin (, literally "home place" or "citizen place"; ; , literally "place of relevance") denotes where a Swiss citizen has their municipal citizenship, usually inherited from previous generations. It is not to be confus ...
. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently reside elsewhere. Notable diasporic populations include the
Jewish Diaspora The Jewish diaspora ( ), alternatively the dispersion ( ) or the exile ( ; ), consists of Jews who reside outside of the Land of Israel. Historically, it refers to the expansive scattering of the Israelites out of their homeland in the Southe ...
formed after the
Babylonian exile The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile was the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were forcibly relocated to Babylonia by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The deportations occurre ...
;
Assyrian diaspora The Assyrian diaspora ( Syriac: ܓܠܘܬܐ, ''Galuta'', "exile") refers to ethnic Assyrians living in communities outside their ancestral homeland. The Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrians claim descent from the ancient Assyrians and are one of t ...
following the
Assyrian genocide The Sayfo (, ), also known as the Seyfo or the Assyrian genocide, was the mass murder and deportation of Assyrian/Syriac Christians in southeastern Anatolia and Persia's Azerbaijan province by Ottoman forces and some Kurdish tribes during ...
;
Greeks Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...
that fled or were displaced following the
fall of Constantinople The Fall of Constantinople, also known as the Conquest of Constantinople, was the capture of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Empire. The city was captured on 29 May 1453 as part of the culmination of a 55-da ...
and the later
Greek genocide The Greek genocide (), which included the Pontic genocide, was the systematic killing of the Christian Ottoman Greek population of Anatolia, which was carried out mainly during World War I and its aftermath (1914–1922) – including the T ...
as well as the
Istanbul pogrom The Istanbul pogrom, also known as the Istanbul riots, were a series of state-sponsored anti-Greek mob attacks directed primarily at Istanbul's Greek minority on 6–7 September 1955. The pogrom was orchestrated by the governing Democrat ...
s; the emigration of
Anglo-Saxons The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...
(primarily to the
Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...
) after the
Norman Conquest of England The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...
; the southern Chinese and
South Asians Ethnic groups in South Asia are ethnolinguistic groupings within the diverse populations of South Asia, including the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Afghanistan is variously considered to be a p ...
who left their homelands during the 19th and 20th centuries; the
Irish diaspora The Irish diaspora () refers to ethnic Irish people and their descendants who live outside the island of Ireland. The phenomenon of migration from Ireland is recorded since the Early Middle Ages,Flechner, Roy; Meeder, Sven (2017). The Irish ...
after the Great Famine; the
Scottish diaspora The Scottish diaspora consists of Scottish people who emigrated from Scotland and their descendants. The diaspora is concentrated in countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, England, New Zealand, Ireland and to a lesser extent A ...
that developed on a large scale after the
Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally, ''upland'' refers to a range of hills, typically from up to , while ''highland'' is usually reserved for range ...
and
Lowland Clearances The Lowland Clearances were one of the results of the Scottish Agricultural Revolution, which changed the traditional system of agriculture which had existed in Lowland Scotland in the seventeenth century. Thousands of cottars and tenant far ...
; Romani from the
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...
; the
Italian diaspora The Italian diaspora (, ) is the large-scale emigration of Italians from Italy. There were two major Italian diasporas in Italian history. The first diaspora began around 1880, two decades after the Risorgimento, Unification of Italy, and ended ...
, the
Mexican diaspora Emigration from Mexico is the movement of people from Mexico to other countries. Immigration from Mexico has risen over the years. Overview The United Nations listed Mexico among the top ten emigration nations during 1970 to 1995. The top de ...
; the
Circassian diaspora The Circassian diaspora are ethnic Circassians around the world who were driven from Circassia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. From 1763 to 1864, the Circassians fought against the Russian Empire in the Russian-Circassia ...
in the aftermath of the
Circassian genocide The Circassian genocide, or Tsitsekun, was the systematic mass killing, ethnic cleansing, and forced displacement of between 95% and 97% of the Circassian people during the final stages of the Russian invasion of Circassia in the 19th centur ...
; the Palestinian diaspora (''shatat'') due to Palestinian migration and displacement; the
Armenian diaspora The Armenian diaspora refers to the communities of Armenians outside Armenia and other locations where Armenians are considered an indigenous population. Since antiquity, Armenians have established communities in many regions throughout the world. ...
following the
Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily t ...
; the
Lebanese diaspora Lebanese diaspora refers to Lebanese migrants and their descendants who emigrated from Lebanon and now reside in other countries. There are more people of Lebanese origin (15,4 million) living outside Lebanon than within the country (6 mill ...
due to the
Lebanese civil war The Lebanese Civil War ( ) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 150,000 fatalities and led to the exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon. The religious diversity of the ...
; and
Syrians Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine Arabic, Levantine and Mesopotamian Arabic, Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The culture of Syria, cultural ...
due to the Syrian civil war; The
Iranian diaspora The Iranian diaspora (collectively known as Iranian Expatriate, expats or expatriates) is the global population of Demographics of Iran, Iranian citizens or people of Iranian descent living outside Iran. In 2021, the Ministry of Foreign Affair ...
, which grew from half a million to 3.8 million between the
1979 revolution The Iranian Revolution (, ), also known as the 1979 Revolution, or the Islamic Revolution of 1979 (, ) was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution led to the replacement of the Impe ...
and 2019, mostly live in
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
and Turkey. According to a 2019
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
report, the
Indian diaspora Overseas Indians (ISO 15919, ISO: ), officially Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and People of Indian Origin (PIOs) are people of Indian descent who reside or originate outside of India (Including those that were directly under the British Raj). Acc ...
is the world's largest diaspora, with a population of 17.5 million, followed by the
Mexican diaspora Emigration from Mexico is the movement of people from Mexico to other countries. Immigration from Mexico has risen over the years. Overview The United Nations listed Mexico among the top ten emigration nations during 1970 to 1995. The top de ...
, with a population of 11.8 million, and the
Chinese diaspora Overseas Chinese people are people of Chinese origin who reside outside Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan). As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. As of 2023, there were 10.5 million people livin ...
, with a population of 10.7 million.


Etymology

The term "diaspora" is derived from the
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
verb (), "I scatter", "I spread about" which in turn is composed of (), "between, through, across" and the verb (), "I sow, I scatter". The term () hence meant "scattering". There is confusion over the exact process of derivation from these Ancient Greek verbs to the concept of diaspora. Many cite
Thucydides Thucydides ( ; ; BC) was an Classical Athens, Athenian historian and general. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts Peloponnesian War, the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been d ...
(5th century BC) as the first to use the word. However, sociologist Stéphane Dufoix remarks "not only is the noun ''diaspora'' quite absent from the Greek original hucydides' ''Peloponnesian War'', II, 27) but the original does not include the verb ''diaspeírô'' either. The verb used is the verb ''speírô'' (seed) conjugated in the passive aorist." The passage in Thucydides reads:
, translated to mean 'Those of the Aeginetans who did not settle here were scattered over the rest of Hellas.'
Dufoix further notes, "Of all the occurrences of ''diaspora'' in the ''Thesaurus Linguae Graecae'' (TLG), which draws upon almost the entire written corpus in the Greek language . . . none refer to colonisation." Dufoix surmises that the confusion may stem from a comment by Jewish historian
Simon Dubnow Simon Dubnow (alternatively spelled Dubnov; ; rus, Семён Ма́ркович Ду́бнов, Semyon Markovich Dubnov, sʲɪˈmʲɵn ˈmarkəvʲɪdʑ ˈdubnəf; 10 September 1860 – 8 December 1941) was a Jewish-Russian Empire, Russian h ...
, who wrote an entry on diaspora for the influential
Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences The ''Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences'' is a specialized fifteen-volume Encyclopedia first published in 1930 and last published in 1967. It was envisaged in the 1920s by scholars working in disciplines which increasingly were coming to be know ...
. His entry, published in 1931, includes the following remark: "In a sense
Magna Graecia Magna Graecia refers to the Greek-speaking areas of southern Italy, encompassing the modern Regions of Italy, Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania, and Sicily. These regions were Greek colonisation, extensively settled by G ...
constituted a Greek diaspora in the ancient Roman Empire." "Magna Graecia" refers to ancient Greek colonies established along the Italian coast, which lost their independence following the
Second Punic War The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of Punic Wars, three wars fought between Ancient Carthage, Carthage and Roman Republic, Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For ...
and their integration into the Roman Empire. The first recorded use of the word "diaspora" is found in the
Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...
, first in: *
Deuteronomy Deuteronomy (; ) is the fifth book of the Torah (in Judaism), where it is called () which makes it the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament. Chapters 1–30 of the book consist of three sermons or speeches delivered to ...
28:25, in the phrase , , translated to mean 'thou shalt be a dispersion in all kingdoms of the earth' and secondly in: *
Psalms The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament. The book is an anthology of B ...
146(147).2, in the phrase , , translated to mean 'The Lord doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel'. When the Bible was translated into Greek, the word ''diaspora'' was applied in reference to the Kingdom of Samaria which was exiled from Israel by the
Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...
ns between 740 and 722 BC, as well as Jews, Benjaminites, and Levites who were exiled from the
Kingdom of Judah The Kingdom of Judah was an Israelites, Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Centered in the highlands to the west of the Dead Sea, the kingdom's capital was Jerusalem. It was ruled by the Davidic line for four centuries ...
by the
Babylonians Babylonia (; , ) was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as an Akkadian-populated but Amorite-ru ...
in 587 BC, and Jews who were exiled from Roman Judea by the
Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...
in 70 AD. It subsequently came to be used in reference to the historical movements and settlement patterns of the Jews. In English, capitalized, and without modifiers, the term can refer specifically to the
Jewish diaspora The Jewish diaspora ( ), alternatively the dispersion ( ) or the exile ( ; ), consists of Jews who reside outside of the Land of Israel. Historically, it refers to the expansive scattering of the Israelites out of their homeland in the Southe ...
. The wider application of ''diaspora'' evolved from the Assyrian two-way mass deportation policy of conquered populations to deny future territorial claims on their part.


Definition

The oldest known use of the word "diaspora" in English is in 1594 in John Stockwood's translation of Lambert Daneau's commentary on the Twelve Prophets. Daneau writes:
This scattering abrode of the Iewes, as it were an heauenly sowing, fell out after their returne from the captiuitie of Babylon. Wherevpon both Acts. 2. and also 1. Pet. 1. and 1. Iam. ver. 1. icthey are called ''Diaspora'', that is, a scattering or sowing abrode.
However, the current entry on "diaspora" in the ''
Oxford English Dictionary Online The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
'' dates the first recorded use a century later to 1694, in a work on ordination by the Welsh theologian James Owen. Owen wanted to prove that there is no difference in the Bible between Presbyters and Bishops; he cited the example of the Jews in exile:
The Presbyters of the Jewish ''Diaspora'', to whom St. ''Peter'' wrote, are requir'd ποιμαίνειν ϗ̀ ἐπισκοπείν, to feed or rule the Flock, and to perform the office and work of Bishops among them.
The OED records a usage of "diaspora" in 1876, which refers to "extensive ''diaspora'' work (as it is termed) of evangelizing among the National Protestant Churches on the continent". The term became more widely assimilated into English by the mid 1950s, with long-term
expatriates An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. The term often refers to a professional, skilled worker, or student from an affluent country. However, it may also refer to retirees, artists and ...
in significant numbers from other particular countries or regions also being referred to as a diaspora. An academic field,
diaspora studies Diaspora studies is an academic field established in the late 20th century to study dispersed ethnic populations, which are often termed diaspora peoples. The usage of the term diaspora carries the connotation of forced resettlement, due to expu ...
, has become established relating to this sense of the word.


Scholarly work and expanding definition

William Safran in an article published in 1991, set out six rules to distinguish diasporas from migrant communities. These included criteria that the group maintains a myth or
collective memory Collective memory is the shared pool of memories, knowledge and information of a social group that is significantly associated with the group's identity. The English phrase "collective memory" and the equivalent French phrase "la mémoire collect ...
of their homeland; they regard their ancestral homeland as their true home, to which they will eventually
return Return may refer to: In business, economics, and finance * Return on investment (ROI), the financial gain after an expense. * Rate of return, the financial term for the profit or loss derived from an investment * Tax return, a blank document or t ...
; being committed to the restoration or maintenance of that homeland, and they relate "personally or vicariously" to the homeland to a point where it shapes their identity. Safran's definitions were influenced by the idea of the Jewish diaspora. Safran also included a criterion of having been forced into exile by political or economic factors, followed by a long period of settlement in the new host culture. In 1997, Robin Cohen argued that a diasporic group could leave its homeland voluntarily, and assimilate deeply into host cultures. Rogers Brubaker (2005) more inclusively applied three basic definitional criteria: First, geographic dispersion (voluntary or forced) of a people; second, "the orientation to a real or imagined 'homeland' as an authoritative source of value, identity and loyalty"; and third, maintenance of a social boundary corresponding to the conservation of a distinctive diasporic identity which differs from the host culture. Brubaker also noted that the use of the term ''diaspora'' has been widening. He suggests that one element of this expansion in use "involves the application of the term diaspora to an ever-broadening set of cases: essentially to any and every nameable population category that is to some extent dispersed in space". Brubaker used the
WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...
database to show that 17 out of the 18 books on diaspora published between 1900 and 1910 were on the Jewish diaspora. The majority of works in the 1960s were also about the Jewish diaspora, but in 2002 only two out of 20 books sampled (out of a total of 253) were about the Jewish case, with a total of eight different diasporas covered. Brubaker outlined the original use of the term ''diaspora'' as follows: Some observers have labeled evacuation from
New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...
and the
Gulf Coast The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South or the South Coast, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Tex ...
in the wake of
Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a powerful, devastating and historic tropical cyclone that caused 1,392 fatalities and damages estimated at $125 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area. ...
the New Orleans diaspora, since a significant number of evacuees have not been able to return, yet maintain aspirations to do so. Agnieszka Weinar (2010) notes the widening use of the term, arguing that recently, "a growing body of literature succeeded in reformulating the definition, framing diaspora as almost any ''population'' on the move and no longer referring to the specific ''context'' of their existence". It has even been noted that as charismatic Christianity becomes increasingly globalized, many Christians conceive of themselves as a diaspora, and form a bond that mimics salient features of some ethnic diasporas. Professional communities of individuals no longer in their homeland can also be considered diaspora. For example, science diasporas are communities of scientists who conduct their research away from their homeland and trading diasporas are communities of merchant aliens. In an article published in 1996, Khachig Tölölyan argues that the media have used the term corporate diaspora in a rather arbitrary and inaccurate fashion, for example as applied to "mid-level, mid-career executives who have been forced to find new places at a time of corporate upheaval" (10) The use of corporate diaspora reflects the increasing popularity of the diaspora notion to describe a wide range of phenomena related to contemporary migration, displacement and transnational mobility. While corporate diaspora seems to avoid or contradict connotations of violence, coercion, and unnatural uprooting historically associated with the notion of diaspora, its scholarly use may heuristically describe the ways in which corporations function alongside diasporas. In this way, corporate diaspora might foreground the racial histories of diasporic formations without losing sight of the cultural logic of
late capitalism The concept of late capitalism (in German: ''Spätkapitalismus''), also known as late-stage capitalism, was first used by the German social scientist Werner Sombart (1863–1941) in 1928, to describe the new capitalist order emerging at that tim ...
in which corporations orchestrate the transnational circulation of people, images, ideologies and capital. In contemporary times, scholars have classified the different kinds of diasporas based on their causes, such as
colonialism Colonialism is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group. Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory. While frequently an Imperialism, imperialist project, colonialism c ...
, trade/labour migrations, or the social coherence which exists within the diaspora communities and their ties to the ancestral lands. With greater migration flows through the world in modern times, the concept of a secondary diaspora (a new diaspora branching out of a previous diaspora) or sub-diaspora groupings has started being studied. Some diaspora communities maintain strong cultural and political ties to their homelands. Other qualities that may be typical of many diasporas are thoughts of return to the ancestral lands, maintaining any form of ties with the region of origin as well as relationships with other communities in the diaspora, and lack of full integration into the new host countries. Diasporas often maintain ties to the country of their historical affiliation and usually influence their current host country's policies towards their homeland. "Diaspora management" is a term that
Harris Mylonas Harris Mylonas is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University and the editor-in-chief for ''Nationalities Papers'', a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Cambridge University Press. He ...
has "re-conceptualized to describe both the policies that states follow in order to build links with their diaspora abroad and the policies designed to help with the incorporation and integration of diasporic communities when they 'return' home".


African diasporas

The diaspora of Africans during the
Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of Slavery in Africa, enslaved African people to the Americas. European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Pass ...
is one of the most notorious modern diasporas. 10.7 million people from West Africa survived transportation to arrive in the Americas as
slaves Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...
starting in the late 16th century CE and continuing into the 19th. Outside of the Atlantic slave trade, however, African diasporic communities have existed for millennia. While some communities were slave-based, other groups emigrated for various reasons. From the 8th through the 19th centuries, the
Arab slave trade The Arab slave trade refers to various periods in which a slave trade has been carried out under the auspices of Arab peoples or Arab countries. The Arab slave trades are often associated or connected to the history of slavery in the Muslim world ...
dispersed millions of Africans to Asia and the islands of the Indian Ocean. The Islamic slave trade also has resulted in the creation of communities of African descent in India, most notably the
Siddi The Siddi (), also known as the Sheedi, Sidi, or Siddhi, are an ethno-religious group living mostly in Pakistan. Some Siddis also live in India. They are primarily descended from the Bantu peoples of the Zanj coast in Southeast Africa, most ...
, Makrani and
Sri Lanka Kaffirs The Sri Lankan Kaffirs (cafrinhas in Portuguese language, Portuguese, කාපිරි ''kāpiriyō'' in Sinhalese language, Sinhala, and காப்பிலி ''kāppili'' in Tamil language, Tamil) are an ethnic group in Sri Lanka who are pa ...
. Beginning as early as the 2nd century AD, the kingdom of
Aksum Axum, also spelled Aksum (), is a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia with a population of 66,900 residents (as of 2015). It is the site of the historic capital of the Aksumite Empire. Axum is located in the Central Zone of the Tigray Regi ...
(modern-day
Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...
) created colonies on the Arabian Peninsula. During the 4th century, Aksum formally adopted Christianity as a state religion, becoming the first to do so along with
Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...
. In the 6th century, Kaleb of Axum invaded
Himyar Himyar was a polity in the southern highlands of Yemen, as well as the name of the region which it claimed. Until 110 BCE, it was integrated into the Qatabanian kingdom, afterwards being recognized as an independent kingdom. According to class ...
(modern-day
Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...
) to aid and defend Christians under religious persecution. During these campaigns, several groups of soldiers chose not to return to Aksum. These groups are estimated to have ranged in size from the 600s to mid 3000s. Previously, migrant Africans with national African passports could only enter thirteen African countries without advanced visas. In pursuing a unified future, the
African Union The African Union (AU) is a continental union of 55 member states located on the continent of Africa. The AU was announced in the Sirte Declaration in Sirte, Libya, on 9 September 1999, calling for the establishment of the African Union. The b ...
(AU) launched an African Union Passport in July 2016, allowing people with a passport from one of the 55 member states of the AU to move freely between these countries under this visa free passport and encourage migrants with national African passports to return to Africa.


Asian diasporas

The largest Asian diaspora in the world is the Indian diaspora. The overseas Indian community, estimated to number over 17.5 million, is spread across many regions of the world, on every continent. It is a global community which is diverse, heterogeneous and eclectic and its members represent different regions, languages, cultures, and faiths (see
Desi Desi ( or or ; Hindustani language, Hindustani: देसी , , ) also Deshi, is a loose term used to describe the ethnic groups in South Asia, peoples, culture of South Asia, cultures, and products of the Indian subcontinent and their Sout ...
). Similarly, the Romani, numbering roughly 12 million in Europe trace their origins to the
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...
, and their presence in Europe is first attested to in the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
. The
South Asian diaspora The South Asian diaspora, also known as the Desi diaspora, is the group of people whose ancestral origins lie in South Asia, but who live outside the region. There are over 44 million people in this diaspora. Endonyms South Asians in the diaspo ...
as a whole has over 44 million people. The earliest known Asian diaspora of note is the
Jewish diaspora The Jewish diaspora ( ), alternatively the dispersion ( ) or the exile ( ; ), consists of Jews who reside outside of the Land of Israel. Historically, it refers to the expansive scattering of the Israelites out of their homeland in the Southe ...
. With roots in the
Babylonian Captivity The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile was the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were forcibly relocated to Babylonia by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The deportations occurred ...
and later migrations under Hellenism, the majority of the diaspora can be attributed to the Roman conquest, expulsion, and enslavement of the Jewish population of
Judea Judea or Judaea (; ; , ; ) is a mountainous region of the Levant. Traditionally dominated by the city of Jerusalem, it is now part of Palestine and Israel. The name's usage is historic, having been used in antiquity and still into the pres ...
, whose descendants became the
Ashkenazim Ashkenazi Jews ( ; also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim) form a distinct subgroup of the Jewish diaspora, that emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium CE. They traditionally speak Yiddish, a language ...
,
Sephardim Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendan ...
, and
Mizrahim Mizrahi Jews (), also known as ''Mizrahim'' () in plural and ''Mizrahi'' () in singular, and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or ''Edot HaMizrach'' (, ), are terms used in Israeli discourse to refer to a grouping of Jewish commun ...
of today, roughly numbering 15 million of which 8 million still live in the diaspora, though the number was much higher before Zionist aliyah (immigration to Israel) and the murder of 6 million Jews in the
Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
.
Chinese emigration Waves of Chinese emigration have happened throughout history. They include the emigration to Southeast Asia beginning from the 10th century during the Tang dynasty, to the Americas during the 19th century, particularly during the California go ...
(also known as the Chinese Diaspora; see also
Overseas Chinese Overseas Chinese people are Chinese people, people of Chinese origin who reside outside Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan). As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. As of 2023, there were 10.5 milli ...
) first occurred thousands of years ago. The mass emigration that occurred from the 19th century to 1949 was caused mainly by wars and starvation in
mainland China "Mainland China", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a Geopolitics, geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addit ...
, as well as political corruption. Most migrants were illiterate or poorly educated peasants, called by the now-recognized racial slur
coolies Coolie (also spelled koelie, kouli, khuli, khulie, kuli, cooli, cooly, or quli) is a pejorative term used for low-wage labourers, typically those of Indian or Chinese descent. The word ''coolie'' was first used in the 16th century by Europ ...
(), who migrated to developing countries in need of labor, such as the Americas, Australia, South Africa, Southeast Asia, Malaya and other places. The
Pakistani diaspora Overseas Pakistanis (), or the Pakistani diaspora, refer to Pakistanis who live outside of Pakistan. These include citizens who have migrated to another country as well as people born abroad of Pakistani descent. According to a December 20 ...
is the third largest diaspora in Asia with approximately 10 million
Pakistanis Pakistanis (, ) are the citizens and nationals of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the second-largest Muslim population as of 2023. As much as ...
living abroad mostly in Middle East, North America and Europe. At least three waves of Nepalese diaspora can be identified. The earliest wave dates back hundreds of years as early marriage and high birthrates propelled Hindu settlement eastward across Nepal, then into
Sikkim Sikkim ( ; ) is a States and union territories of India, state in northeastern India. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China in the north and northeast, Bhutan in the east, Koshi Province of Nepal in the west, and West Bengal in the ...
and Bhutan. A backlash developed in the 1980s as Bhutan's political elites realized that Bhutanese Buddhists were at risk of becoming a minority in their own country. At least 60,000 ethnic Nepalese from Bhutan have been resettled in the United States. A second wave was driven by British recruitment of mercenary soldiers beginning around 1815 and resettlement after retirement in the
British Isles The British Isles are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner Hebrides, Inner and Outer Hebr ...
and Southeast Asia. The third wave began in the 1970s as land shortages intensified and the pool of educated labor greatly exceeded job openings in Nepal. Job-related emigration created Nepalese enclaves in India, the wealthier countries of the Middle East, Europe, and North America. Current estimates of the number of Nepalese living outside Nepal range well up into the millions. In Siam, regional power struggles among several kingdoms in the region led to a large diaspora of ethnic Lao between the 1700s–1800s by Siamese rulers to settle large areas of the Siamese kingdom's northeast region, where Lao ethnicity is still a major factor in 2012. During this period, Siam decimated the Lao capital, capturing, torturing, and killing the Lao king Anuwongse, who led the Lao rebellion in the 19th century.


European diasporas

European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD 500), the Middle Ages (AD 500–1500), and the modern era (since AD 1500). The first early Eu ...
contains numerous diaspora-causing events. In
ancient times Ancient history is a time period from the History of writing, beginning of writing and recorded human history through late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the development of Sumerian language, ...
, the trading and colonising activities of the
Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
tribes from the
Balkans The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...
and
Asia Minor Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...
spread people of Greek culture, religion and language around the
Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...
and
Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...
basins, establishing Greek
city-states A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world throughout history, including cities such as Rome, ...
in
southern Italy Southern Italy (, , or , ; ; ), also known as () or (; ; ; ), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern Regions of Italy, regions. The term "" today mostly refers to the regions that are associated with the people, lands or cultu ...
(the so-called "
Magna Graecia Magna Graecia refers to the Greek-speaking areas of southern Italy, encompassing the modern Regions of Italy, Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania, and Sicily. These regions were Greek colonisation, extensively settled by G ...
"), northern Libya, eastern Spain, the
south of France Southern France, also known as the south of France or colloquially in French as , is a geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin,Louis Papy, ''Le midi atlantique'', Atlas e ...
, and the Black Sea coasts. Greeks founded more than 400 colonies. Tyre and Carthage also colonised the Mediterranean.
Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...
's conquest of the
Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian peoples, Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, i ...
marked the beginning of the
Hellenistic period In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...
, characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization in Asia and Africa, with Greek ruling classes established in
Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
,
southwest Asia West Asia (also called Western Asia or Southwest Asia) is the westernmost region of Asia. As defined by most academics, UN bodies and other institutions, the subregion consists of Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Mesopotamia, the Armenia ...
and
northwest India Northwest India is a loosely defined administrative divisions of India, region of India. In modern-day, it consists of north-western states of the India, Republic of India. In historical contexts, it refers to the northwestern Indian subcontin ...
. Subsequent waves of colonization and migration during the Middle Ages added to the older settlements or created new ones, thus replenishing the
Greek diaspora The Greek diaspora, also known as Omogenia (), are the communities of Greeks living outside of Greece and Cyprus. Such places historically (dating to the ancient period) include, Greeks in Albania, Albania, Greeks in North Macedonia, North Maced ...
and making it one of the most long-standing and widespread in the world. The Romans also established numerous colonies and settlements outside of Rome and throughout the Roman empire. The
Migration Period The Migration Period ( 300 to 600 AD), also known as the Barbarian Invasions, was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories ...
relocations, which included several phases, are just one set of many in history. The first phase Migration-Period displacement (between 300 and 500 AD) included relocation of the
Goths The Goths were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe. They were first reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 3rd century AD, living north of the Danube in what is ...
(
Ostrogoths The Ostrogoths () were a Roman-era Germanic peoples, Germanic people. In the 5th century, they followed the Visigoths in creating one of the two great Goths, Gothic kingdoms within the Western Roman Empire, drawing upon the large Gothic populatio ...
and
Visigoths The Visigoths (; ) were a Germanic people united under the rule of a king and living within the Roman Empire during late antiquity. The Visigoths first appeared in the Balkans, as a Roman-allied Barbarian kingdoms, barbarian military group unite ...
),
Vandals The Vandals were a Germanic people who were first reported in the written records as inhabitants of what is now Poland, during the period of the Roman Empire. Much later, in the fifth century, a group of Vandals led by kings established Vand ...
,
Franks file:Frankish arms.JPG, Aristocratic Frankish burial items from the Merovingian dynasty The Franks ( or ; ; ) were originally a group of Germanic peoples who lived near the Rhine river, Rhine-river military border of Germania Inferior, which wa ...
, various other
Germanic people The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe in Classical antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era ''Germani'' who lived in both ''Germania'' and parts of ...
s (
Burgundians The Burgundians were an early Germanic peoples, Germanic tribe or group of tribes. They appeared east in the middle Rhine region in the third century AD, and were later moved west into the Roman Empire, in Roman Gaul, Gaul. In the first and seco ...
,
Lombards The Lombards () or Longobards () were a Germanic peoples, Germanic people who conquered most of the Italian Peninsula between 568 and 774. The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the ''History of the Lombards'' (written betwee ...
,
Angles Angles most commonly refers to: *Angles (tribe), a Germanic-speaking people that took their name from the Angeln cultural region in Germany *Angle, a geometric figure formed by two rays meeting at a common point Angles may also refer to: Places ...
,
Saxons The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...
,
Jutes The Jutes ( ) were one of the Germanic people, Germanic tribes who settled in Great Britain after the end of Roman rule in Britain, departure of the Roman Britain, Romans. According to Bede, they were one of the three most powerful Germanic na ...
,
Suebi file:1st century Germani.png, 300px, The approximate positions of some Germanic peoples reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 1st century. Suebian peoples in red, and other Irminones in purple. The Suebi (also spelled Suavi, Suevi or Suebians ...
and
Alemanni The Alemanni or Alamanni were a confederation of Germanic peoples, Germanic tribes * * * on the Upper Rhine River during the first millennium. First mentioned by Cassius Dio in the context of the campaign of Roman emperor Caracalla of 213 CE ...
),
Alans The Alans () were an ancient and medieval Iranian peoples, Iranic Eurasian nomads, nomadic pastoral people who migrated to what is today North Caucasus – while some continued on to Europe and later North Africa. They are generally regarded ...
and numerous Slavic tribes. The second phase, between 500 and 900 AD, saw Slavic, Turkic, and other tribes on the move, resettling in Eastern Europe and gradually leaving it predominantly Slavic, and affecting
Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...
and the
Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...
as the first Turkic tribes ( Avars,
Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was par ...
,
Khazars The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, a ...
,
Pechenegs The Pechenegs () or Patzinaks, , Middle Turkic languages, Middle Turkic: , , , , , , ka, პაჭანიკი, , , ; sh-Latn-Cyrl, Pečenezi, separator=/, Печенези, also known as Pecheneg Turks were a semi-nomadic Turkic peopl ...
), as well as
Bulgars The Bulgars (also Bulghars, Bulgari, Bolgars, Bolghars, Bolgari, Proto-Bulgarians) were Turkic peoples, Turkic Nomad, semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region between the 5th and 7th centu ...
, and possibly
Magyars Hungarians, also known as Magyars, are an ethnic group native to Hungary (), who share a common culture, language and history. They also have a notable presence in former parts of the Kingdom of Hungary. The Hungarian language belongs to the ...
arrived. The last phase of the migrations saw the coming of the Hungarian Magyars. The
Viking Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...
expansion out of
Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...
into southern and eastern Europe, Iceland, the British Isles and Greenland. The recent application of the word "diaspora" to the Viking lexicon highlights their cultural profile distinct from their predatory reputation in the regions they settled, especially in the North Atlantic. The more positive connotations associated with the social science term help to view the movement of the Scandinavian peoples in the Viking Age in a new way. Such colonizing migrations cannot be considered indefinitely as diasporas; over very long periods, eventually, the migrants assimilate into the settled area so completely that it becomes their new mental homeland. Thus the modern Magyars of Hungary do not feel that they belong in the Western
Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...
that the Hungarian Magyars left 12 centuries ago; and the English descendants of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes do not yearn to reoccupy the plains of Northwest Germany. In 1492 a Spanish-financed expedition headed by
Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus (; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italians, Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed Voyages of Christopher Columbus, four Spanish-based voyages across the At ...
arrived in the Americas, after which European exploration and colonization rapidly expanded. Historian James Axtell estimates that 240,000 people left Europe for the Americas in the 16th century. Emigration continued. In the 19th century alone over 50 million Europeans migrated to North and South America. Other Europeans moved to Siberia, Africa, and Australasia. The properly Spanish emigrants were mainly from several parts of Spain, but not only the impoverished ones (i.e.,
Basques The Basques ( or ; ; ; ) are a Southwestern European ethnic group, characterised by the Basque language, a Basque culture, common culture and shared genetic ancestry to the ancient Vascones and Aquitanians. Basques are indigenous peoples, ...
in
Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...
), and the destination varied also along the time. As an example, the
Galicians Galicians ( or ''pobo galego''; ) are an ethnic group primarily residing in Galicia, northwest Iberian Peninsula. Historical emigration resulted in populations in other parts of Spain, Europe, and the Americas. Galicians possess distinct cu ...
moved first to the American colonies during the XVII-XX (mainly but not only Mexico, Cuba, Argentine and Venezuela, as many
writers A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles, genres and techniques to communicate ideas, to inspire feelings and emotions, or to entertain. Writers may develop different forms of writing such as novels, short stori ...
during the Francoist exile), later to Europe (France, Switzerland) and finally within Spain (to Madrid, Catalonia or the Basque Country). A specific 19th-century example is the
Irish diaspora The Irish diaspora () refers to ethnic Irish people and their descendants who live outside the island of Ireland. The phenomenon of migration from Ireland is recorded since the Early Middle Ages,Flechner, Roy; Meeder, Sven (2017). The Irish ...
, beginning in the mid-19th century and brought about by or "the Great Hunger" of the
Irish Famine The Great Famine, also known as the Great Hunger ( ), the Famine and the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of mass starvation and disease in Ireland lasting from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a historical social crisis and had a major impact ...
. An estimated 45% to 85% of Ireland's population emigrated to areas including Britain, the United States, Canada, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand. The size of the Irish diaspora is demonstrated by the number of people around the world who claim Irish ancestry; some sources put the figure at 80 to 100 million. From the 1860s, the Circassian people, originally from Europe, were dispersed through Anatolia, Australia, the Balkans, the Levant, North America, and West Europe, leaving less than 10% of their population in the homeland – parts of historical Circassia (in the modern-day Russian portion of the
Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...
). The
Scottish Diaspora The Scottish diaspora consists of Scottish people who emigrated from Scotland and their descendants. The diaspora is concentrated in countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, England, New Zealand, Ireland and to a lesser extent A ...
includes large populations of Highlanders moving to the United States and Canada after the
Highland Clearances The Highland Clearances ( , the "eviction of the Gaels") were the evictions of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, mostly in two phases from 1750 to 1860. The first phase resulted from Scottish Agricultural R ...
; as well as the Lowlanders, becoming the
Ulster Scots Ulster Scots, may refer to: * Ulster Scots people * Ulster Scots dialect Ulster Scots or Ulster-Scots (), also known as Ulster Scotch and Ullans, is the dialect (whose proponents assert is a dialect of Scots language, Scots) spoken in parts ...
in Ireland and the Scotch-Irish in America. There were two major
Italian diaspora The Italian diaspora (, ) is the large-scale emigration of Italians from Italy. There were two major Italian diasporas in Italian history. The first diaspora began around 1880, two decades after the Risorgimento, Unification of Italy, and ended ...
s in
Italian history Italy has been inhabited by humans Prehistoric Italy, since the Paleolithic. During antiquity, there were many ancient peoples of Italy, peoples in the Italian peninsula, including Etruscan civilization, Etruscans, Latins, Samnites, Umbri, Cisal ...
. The first diaspora began around 1880, two decades after the
Unification of Italy The unification of Italy ( ), also known as the Risorgimento (; ), was the 19th century Political movement, political and social movement that in 1861 ended in the Proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, annexation of List of historic states of ...
, and ended in the 1920s to the early 1940s with the rise of
Fascist Italy Fascist Italy () is a term which is used in historiography to describe the Kingdom of Italy between 1922 and 1943, when Benito Mussolini and the National Fascist Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship. Th ...
.Pozzetta, George E., Bruno Ramirez, and Robert F. Harney. The Italian Diaspora: Migration across the Globe. Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1992. Poverty was the main reason for emigration, specifically the lack of land as '' mezzadria''
sharecropping Sharecropping is a legal arrangement in which a landowner allows a tenant (sharecropper) to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping is not to be conflated with tenant farming, providing the tenant a ...
flourished in Italy, especially in the South, and property became subdivided over generations. Especially in
Southern Italy Southern Italy (, , or , ; ; ), also known as () or (; ; ; ), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern Regions of Italy, regions. The term "" today mostly refers to the regions that are associated with the people, lands or cultu ...
, conditions were harsh. Until the 1860s to 1950s, most of Italy was a
rural society Rural sociology is a field of sociology traditionally associated with the study of social structure and conflict in rural areas. It is an active academic field in much of the world, originating in the United States in the 1910s with close ties ...
with many small towns and cities and almost no modern industry in which land management practices, especially in the South and the
Northeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A '' compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—eac ...
, did not easily convince farmers to stay on the land and to work the soil. Another factor was related to the overpopulation of Southern Italy as a result of the improvements in socioeconomic conditions after
Unification Unification or unification theory may refer to: Computer science * Unification (computer science), the act of identifying two terms with a suitable substitution * Unification (graph theory), the computation of the most general graph that subs ...
. That created a demographic boom and forced the new generations to emigrate en masse in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, mostly to the
Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...
. The new migration of capital created millions of unskilled jobs around the world and was responsible for the simultaneous mass migration of Italians searching for "work and bread". The second diaspora started after the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
and concluded roughly in the 1970s. Between 1880 and 1980, about 15,000,000 Italians left the country permanently. By 1980, it was estimated that about 25,000,000 Italians were residing outside Italy.


Internal diasporas

In the United States of America, approximately 4.3 million people moved outside their home states in 2010, according to
IRS The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting Taxation in the United States, U.S. federal taxes and administerin ...
tax-exemption data. In a 2011 TEDx presentation, Detroit native Garlin Gilchrist referenced the formation of distinct "Detroit diaspora" communities in Seattle and in Washington, DC, while layoffs in the
auto industry The automotive industry comprises a wide range of companies and organizations involved in the design, development, manufacturing, marketing, selling, repairing, and modification of motor vehicles. It is one of the world's largest industrie ...
also led to substantial
blue-collar A blue-collar worker is a person who performs manual labor or skilled trades. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled labor. The type of work may involve manufacturing, retail, warehousing, mining, carpentry, electrical work, custodia ...
migration from Michigan to Wyoming 2005. In response to a statewide exodus of talent, the State of Michigan continues to host "MichAGAIN" career-recruiting events in places throughout the United States with significant Michigan-diaspora populations. In the People's Republic of China, millions of migrant workers have sought greater opportunity in the country's booming coastal metropolises, though this trend has slowed with the further development of China's interior. Migrant social structures in Chinese megacities are often based on place of origin, such as a shared hometown or province, and recruiters and foremen commonly select entire work-crews from the same village. In two separate June 2011 incidents,
Sichuanese Sichuanese, Szechuanese or Szechwanese may refer to something of, from, or related to the Chinese province and region of Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jin ...
migrant workers organized violent protests against alleged police misconduct and migrant-labor abuse near the southern manufacturing hub of
Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...
. Much of
Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...
's
population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...
has its origins in internal migration – voluntary or otherwise – from
European Russia European Russia is the western and most populated part of the Russia, Russian Federation. It is geographically situated in Europe, as opposed to the country's sparsely populated and vastly larger eastern part, Siberia, which is situated in Asia ...
since the 16th century. The vast majority of the Siberian population (over 85%) is Slavic and other
Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
ethnicities, mainly the
Russians Russians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian language, Russian, the most spoken Slavic languages, Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church ...
(including their subethnic group
Siberians The Siberians or Siberiaks (, ) are the majority inhabitants of Siberia, as well as the Ethnic group, subgroup or ethnographic group of the Russians. As demonym The demonym ''Siberian'' can be restricted to either the Russian Siberiaks or ...
),
Ukrainians Ukrainians (, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the List of contemporary eth ...
, and
Germans Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...
. Most non-Slavic groups are Turkic. Smaller linguistic groups include Mongolic (ca. 600,000 speakers),
Uralic The Uralic languages ( ), sometimes called the Uralian languages ( ), are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers abo ...
( Samoyedic, Ugric; roughly 100,000 speakers), Manchu-Tungus (ca. 40,000 speakers), Chukotko-Kamchatkan (ca. 25,000 speakers),
Eskimo–Aleut The Eskaleut ( ), Eskimo–Aleut or Inuit–Yupik–Unangan languages are a language family native to the northern portions of the North American continent, and a small part of northeastern Asia. Languages in the family are indigenous to parts of ...
(some 2,000 speakers),
Yukaghir The Yukaghirs, or Yukagirs ( (), ), are a Siberian ethnic group in the Russian Far East, living in the basin of the Kolyma River. Geographic distribution The Tundra Yukaghirs live in the Lower Kolyma region in the Sakha Republic; the Taiga Y ...
(highly endangered), and languages isolates Ket (but see below) and
Nivkh Nivkh or Amuric or Gilyak may refer to: * Nivkh people (''Nivkhs'') or Gilyak people (''Gilyaks'') * Nivkh languages or Gilyak languages * Gilyak class gunboat, ''Gilyak'' class gunboat, such as the Russian gunboat Korietz#Second gunboat, second R ...
.


Canada

In Canada,
internal migration Internal migration or domestic migration is human migration within a country. Internal migration tends to be travel for education and for economic improvement or because of a natural disaster or civil disturbance, though a study based on the full ...
has occurred for a number of different factors over the course of Canadian history. An example is the migration of workers from
Atlantic Canada Atlantic Canada, also called the Atlantic provinces (), is the list of regions of Canada, region of Eastern Canada comprising four provinces: New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. As of 2021, the landma ...
(particularly
Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the populatio ...
) to
Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...
, driven in part by the cod collapse in the early 1990s and the 1992 moratorium on cod fishing. Fishing had previously been a major driver of the economies of the Atlantic provinces, and this loss of work proved catastrophic for many families. As a result, beginning in the early 1990s and into the late 2000s, thousands of people from the Atlantic provinces were driven out-of-province to find work elsewhere in the country, especially in the Alberta
oil sands Oil sands are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. They are either loose sands, or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, soaked with bitumen (a dense and extremely viscous ...
during the oil boom of the mid-2000s. This systemic export of labour is explored by author
Kate Beaton Kathryn Moira Beaton (born 8 September 1983) is a Canadian comics artist best known as the creator of the comic strip ''Hark! A Vagrant'', which ran from 2007 to 2018. Her other major works include the children's books ''The Princess and the Pon ...
in her 2022 graphic memoir ''
Ducks Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family (biology), family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and goose, geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfam ...
'', which details her experience working in the
Athabasca oil sands The Athabasca oil sands, also known as the Athabasca tar sands, are large deposits of oil sands rich in bitumen, a heavy and viscous form of petroleum, in northeastern Alberta, Canada. These reserves are one of the largest sources of unconventi ...
.


Brazil

Internal migration in Brazil Internal migration in Brazil occurs mainly for economic reasons and ecological disasters. Internal migration involves the movement of people within the same territory, which can be between regions, states or municipalities. It does not affect th ...
occurs mainly for economic reasons and ecological disasters.
Internal migration Internal migration or domestic migration is human migration within a country. Internal migration tends to be travel for education and for economic improvement or because of a natural disaster or civil disturbance, though a study based on the full ...
involves the movement of people within the same territory, which can be between regions, states or municipalities. It does not affect the total number of inhabitants in a country, but it does change the regions involved in this process. In Brazil, economic factors exert the greatest influence on migratory flows, as the capitalist production model creates privileged areas for industries, forcing people to move from one place to another in search of better living conditions and jobs to meet their basic survival needs. Some examples of internal migration in Brazil occurred in the 1960s, when the
droughts A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D.  Jiang, A.  Khan, W.  Pokam Mba, D.  Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, ...
devastated the
Northeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A '' compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—eac ...
of Brazil, leading thousands of people to abandon their homes in the Brazilian hinterland due to the lack of agricultural alternatives and social policies in the region. At the end of the 19th century, northeasterners migrated to the
North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...
of Brazil because of the rubber cycle. In the 1970s, migrants from the Northeast and the
South South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...
left in search of a better life in the
Southeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, Radius, radially arrayed compass directions (or Azimuth#In navigation, azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A ''compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, ...
, Brazil's only industrial center at the time.


Italy

The oldest internal migration in Italy goes back to the 11th century when soldiers and settlers from
Northern Italy Northern Italy (, , ) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. The Italian National Institute of Statistics defines the region as encompassing the four Northwest Italy, northwestern Regions of Italy, regions of Piedmo ...
(at the time collectively called "Lombardy"), settled the central and eastern part of
Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...
during the
Norman conquest of southern Italy The Norman conquest of southern Italy lasted from 999 to 1194, involving many battles and independent conquerors. In 1130, the territories in southern Italy united as the Kingdom of Sicily, which included the island of Sicily, the southern thi ...
. After the marriage between the Norman king
Roger I of Sicily Roger I (; ; ; Norse: ''Rogeirr''; 1031 – 22 June 1101), nicknamed "Roger Bosso" and "Grand Count Roger", was a Norman nobleman who became the first Grand Count of Sicily from 1071 to 1101. As a member of the House of Hauteville, he parti ...
with
Adelaide del Vasto Adelaide del Vasto (Adelasia, Azalaïs) ( – 16 April 1118) was countess of Sicily as the third spouse of Roger I of Sicily, and Queen consort of Jerusalem by marriage to Baldwin I of Jerusalem. She served as regent of Sicily during the minor ...
, member of
Aleramici The Aleramici were a Northern Italian noble and royal dynasty of Frankish origin which ruled various northwestern Italian territories in Piedmont and Liguria from the 10th to the 14th century, also reigning over the Kingdom of Jerusalem and th ...
family, many Lombard colonisers left their homeland, in the Aleramici's possessions in
Piedmont Piedmont ( ; ; ) is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the northwest Italy, Northwest of the country. It borders the Liguria region to the south, the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions to the east, and the Aosta Valley region to the ...
and
Liguria Liguria (; ; , ) is a Regions of Italy, region of north-western Italy; its Capital city, capital is Genoa. Its territory is crossed by the Alps and the Apennine Mountains, Apennines Mountain chain, mountain range and is roughly coextensive with ...
, to settle on the island of Sicily. The migration of people from Northern Italy to Sicily continued until the end of the 13th century. In the same period people from Northern Italy also emigrated to
Basilicata Basilicata (, ; ), also known by its ancient name Lucania (, , ), is an administrative region in Southern Italy, bordering on Campania to the west, Apulia to the north and east, and Calabria to the south. It has two coastlines: a 30-kilometr ...
. It is believed that the population of Northern Italy who immigrated to Sicily during these centuries was altogether about 200,000 people. Their descendants, who are still present in Sicily today, are called
Lombards of Sicily The Lombards of Sicily () are an ethnolinguistic minority living in Sicily, southern Italy, speaking an isolated variety of Gallo-Italic languages, the so-called Gallo-Italic of Sicily. History The origins of these communities goes back to the ...
. Following these ancient migrations, in some municipalities of Sicily and Basilicata, dialects of northern origin are still spoken today, the
Gallo-Italic of Sicily The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages Languages of Italy#Northern Italy, of northern Italy: Piedmontese language, Piedmontese, Lombard language, Lombard, Em ...
and the Gallo-Italic of Basilicata. With the fall of Fascist regime in 1943, and the end of World War II in 1945, a large internal migratory flow began from one Italian region to another. This internal emigration was sustained and constantly increased by the economic growth that Italy experienced between the 1950s and 1960s. Given that this economic growth mostly concerned
Northwest Italy Northwest Italy ( or just ) is one of the five official statistical regions of Italy used by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), a first level NUTS region and a European Parliament constituency. Northwest encompasses four of the ...
, which was involved in the birth of many industrial activities, migratory phenomena affected the peasants of the
Triveneto The Triveneto () or (; ; ; ), also often referred to as North-Eastern Italy or simply North-EastNot to be misunderstood with the statistical region Northeast Italy, which includes Emilia-Romagna, too. ( or ), is a historical region of Italy. The ...
and
southern Italy Southern Italy (, , or , ; ; ), also known as () or (; ; ; ), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern Regions of Italy, regions. The term "" today mostly refers to the regions that are associated with the people, lands or cultu ...
, who began to move in large numbers. Other areas of northern Italy were also affected by emigration such as the rural areas of
Mantua Mantua ( ; ; Lombard language, Lombard and ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Italian region of Lombardy, and capital of the Province of Mantua, eponymous province. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the "Italian Capital of Culture". In 2 ...
and
Cremona Cremona ( , , ; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po (river), Po river in the middle of the Po Valley. It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local city a ...
. The destinations of these emigrants were mainly
Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
,
Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...
,
Varese Varese ( , ; or ; ; ; archaic ) is a city and ''comune'' in north-western Lombardy, northern Italy, north-west of Milan. The population of Varese in 2018 was 80,559. It is the capital of the Province of Varese. The hinterland or exurban part ...
,
Como Como (, ; , or ; ) is a city and (municipality) in Lombardy, Italy. It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como. Nestled at the southwestern branch of the picturesque Lake Como, the city is a renowned tourist destination, ce ...
,
Lecco Lecco (, , ; ) is a city of approximately 47,000 inhabitants in Lombardy, Northern Italy, north of Milan. It lies at the end of the south-eastern branch of Lake Como (the branch is named ''Branch of Lecco'' / ''Ramo di Lecco''). The Bergamasqu ...
, and
Brianza Brianza (, ) is a geographical, historical and cultural area of Italy, at the foot of the Alps, in the northwest of Lombardy, between Milan and Lake Como. Geography Brianza extends from the Canzo area, North of Monza (approximately ...
. The rural population of the aforementioned areas began to emigrate to the large industrial centers of the north-west, especially in the so-called "industrial triangle, or the area corresponding to the three-sided polygon with vertices in the cities of Turin, Milan and
Genoa Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...
. Even some cities in central and southern Italy (such as
Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
, which was the object of immigration due to employment in the administrative and tertiary sectors) experienced a conspicuous immigration flow. These migratory movements were accompanied by other flows of lesser intensity, such as transfers from the countryside to smaller cities and travel from mountainous areas to the plains. The main reasons that gave rise to this massive migratory flow were linked to the living conditions in the places of origin of the emigrants (which were very harsh), the absence of stable work, the high rate of poverty, the poor fertility of many agricultural areas, the fragmentation of land properties, which characterized southern Italy above all, and the insecurity caused by
organized crime Organized crime is a category of transnational organized crime, transnational, national, or local group of centralized enterprises run to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a f ...
. Overall, the Italians who moved from southern to northern Italy amounted to 4 million. The migratory flow from the countryside to the big cities also contracted and then stopped in the 1980s. At the same time, migratory movements towards medium-sized cities and those destined for small-sized villages increased.


20th century

The 20th century saw huge population movements. Some involved large-scale transfers of people by government action. Some migrations occurred to avoid conflict and warfare. Other diasporas formed as a consequence of political developments, such as the end of
colonialism Colonialism is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group. Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory. While frequently an Imperialism, imperialist project, colonialism c ...
.


World War II, colonialism, and post-colonialism

As
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
(1939–1945) unfolded,
Nazi German Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...
authorities deported and killed millions of Jews; they also enslaved or murdered millions of other people, including Romani,
Ukrainians Ukrainians (, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the List of contemporary eth ...
,
Russians Russians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian language, Russian, the most spoken Slavic languages, Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church ...
, and other
Slavs The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and ...
. Some Jews fled from the persecution and moved to the unoccupied parts of Western Europe or they moved to the Americas before the borders of the Americas were closed. Later, other
Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...
an refugees moved west, away from Soviet expansion and from the
Iron Curtain The Iron Curtain was the political and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were countries connected to the So ...
regimes established as World War II ended. Hundreds of thousands of these anti-Soviet political refugees and
displaced person Forced displacement (also forced migration or forced relocation) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: displaced "as a result of perse ...
s ended up in western Europe, Australia, Canada, and the United States of America. After World War II, the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
and
communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...
-controlled Poland,
Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
, Hungary and
Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...
expelled millions of
ethnic Germans Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The constitution of Germany, implemented in 1949 following the end of World War ...
, most of them were the descendants of immigrants who had settled in those areas centuries ago. This expulsion was allegedly carried out in reaction to Nazi Germany's invasions and
pan-German Pan-Germanism ( or '), also occasionally known as Pan-Germanicism, is a pan-nationalist political idea. Pan-Germanism seeks to unify all ethnic Germans, German-speaking people, and possibly also non-German Germanic peoples – into a sin ...
attempts to annex Eastern European territory. Most of the refugees moved to the West, including western Europe, and with tens of thousands seeking refuge in the United States. The
Istrian–Dalmatian exodus The Istrian–Dalmatian exodus (; ; ) was the post-World War II exodus and departure of local ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians) as well as ethnic Slovenes and Croats from Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Yugosla ...
was the post-
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
exodus and departure of local ethnic
Italians Italians (, ) are a European peoples, European ethnic group native to the Italian geographical region. Italians share a common Italian culture, culture, History of Italy, history, Cultural heritage, ancestry and Italian language, language. ...
(
Istrian Italians Istrian Italians (; ; ) are an ethnic group from the Adriatic region of Istria in modern northwestern Croatia and southwestern Slovenia. Istrian Italians descend from the original Latinized population of Roman Histria, from the Venetian-speaki ...
and
Dalmatian Italians Dalmatian Italians (; ) are the historical Italian national minority living in the region of Dalmatia, now part of Croatia and Montenegro. Historically, Italian language-speaking Dalmatians accounted for 12.5% of population in 1865, 5.8% in 18 ...
) as well as ethnic
Slovenes The Slovenes, also known as Slovenians ( ), are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Slovenia and adjacent regions in Italy, Austria and Hungary. Slovenes share a common ancestry, Slovenian culture, culture, and History of Slove ...
,
Croats The Croats (; , ) are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and other neighboring countries in Central Europe, Central and Southeastern Europe who share a common Croatian Cultural heritage, ancest ...
, and
Istro-Romanians The Istro-Romanians ( or ) are a Romance languages, Romance ethnic group native to or associated with the Istria, Istrian Peninsula. Historically, they inhabited vast parts of it, as well as the western side of the island of Krk until 1875. Howe ...
from the Yugoslav territory of
Istria Istria ( ; Croatian language, Croatian and Slovene language, Slovene: ; Italian language, Italian and Venetian language, Venetian: ; ; Istro-Romanian language, Istro-Romanian: ; ; ) is the largest peninsula within the Adriatic Sea. Located at th ...
,
Kvarner The Kvarner Gulf (, or ; ; or ) sometimes also Kvarner Bay, is a bay in the northern Adriatic Sea, located between the Istrian peninsula and the northern Croatian Littoral mainland. The bay is a part of Croatia's internal waters. The largest i ...
, the
Julian March The Julian March ( Croatian and ), also called Julian Venetia (; ; ; ), is an area of southern Central Europe which is currently divided among Croatia, Italy, and Slovenia.
as well as
Dalmatia Dalmatia (; ; ) is a historical region located in modern-day Croatia and Montenegro, on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. Through time it formed part of several historical states, most notably the Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Croatia (925 ...
, towards
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
, and in smaller numbers, towards the
Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...
,
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
, and
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
. These regions were ethnically mixed, with long-established historic Croatian, Italian, and Slovene communities. According to various sources, the exodus is estimated to have amounted to between 230,000 and 350,000 Italians (the others being ethnic Slovenes, Croats, and Istro-Romanians, who chose to maintain
Italian citizenship The primary law governing nationality of Italy is Law 91/1992, which came into force on 16 August 1992. Italy is a member state of the European Union (EU), and all Italian nationals are EU citizens. They are entitled to free movement rights ...
) leaving the areas in the aftermath of the conflict. Hundreds or perhaps tens of thousands of local ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians) were killed or summarily executed during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
by
Yugoslav Partisans The Yugoslav Partisans,Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian language, Macedonian, and Slovene language, Slovene: , officially the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia sh-Latn-Cyrl, Narodnooslobodilačka vojska i partizanski odr ...
and
OZNA The Department for Protection of the People, commonly known under its Serbo-Croatian acronym as OZNA, was the secret police of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Communist Yugoslavia that existed between 1944 and 1946. Founding The OZNA w ...
during the first years of the exodus, in what became known as the ''foibe'' massacres. From 1947, after the war, Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians were subject by Yugoslav authorities to less violent forms of intimidation, such as nationalization, expropriation, and discriminatory taxation, which gave them little option other than emigration. In 1953, there were 36,000 declared Italians in Yugoslavia, just about 16% of the original Italian population before World War II. According to the census organized in
Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...
in 2001 and that organized in
Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...
in 2002, the Italians who remained in the former
Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...
amounted to 21,894 people (2,258 in Slovenia and 19,636 in Croatia). Spain sent many political activists into exile during the rule of Franco's military regime from 1936 until his death in 1975. Prior to World War II and the re-establishment of Israel in 1948, a series of anti-Jewish
pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...
s broke out in the
Arab world The Arab world ( '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in West Asia and North Africa. While the majority of people in ...
and caused many to flee, mostly to Palestine/Israel. The
1947–1949 Palestine war The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. During the war, the British withdrew from Palestine, Zionism, Zionist forces conquered territory and established ...
likewise saw at least 750,000
Palestinians Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenou ...
expelled or forced to flee from the newly forming Israel. Many Palestinians continue to live in refugee camps in the Middle East, while others have resettled in other countries. The 1947 Partition in the
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...
resulted in the migration of millions of people between India, Pakistan, and present-day Bangladesh. Many were murdered in the religious violence of the period, with estimates of fatalities up to 2 million people. Thousands of former subjects of the
British Raj The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...
went to the UK from the Indian subcontinent after India and Pakistan became independent in 1947. From the late 19th century, and formally from 1910, Japan made Korea a Japanese colony. Millions of Chinese fled to western provinces not occupied by Japan (that is, in particular,
Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...
and
Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...
in the Southwest and
Shaanxi Shaanxi is a Provinces of China, province in north Northwestern China. It borders the province-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north; Shanxi and Henan to the east; Hubei, Chongqing, and Sichuan to the south; and Gansu and Ningxia to t ...
and
Gansu Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...
in the Northwest) and to Southeast Asia. More than 100,000
Koreans Koreans are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Korean Peninsula. The majority of Koreans live in the two Korean sovereign states of North and South Korea, which are collectively referred to as Korea. As of 2021, an estimated 7.3 m ...
moved across the
Amur River The Amur River () or Heilong River ( zh, s=黑龙江) is a perennial river in Northeast Asia, forming the natural border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China (historically the Outer and Inner Manchuria). The Amur ''proper'' is ...
into the
Russian Far East The Russian Far East ( rus, Дальний Восток России, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in North Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asia, Asian continent, and is coextensive with the Far Easte ...
(and later into the Soviet Union) away from the Japanese.


The Cold War and the formation of post-colonial states

Both during and after the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
-era, huge populations of refugees migrated from countries which experienced conflicts, especially from then-
developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed Secondary sector of the economy, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. ...
. Upheavals in the
Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
and
Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...
, some of which were related to power struggles between the United States and the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
, produced new refugee populations that developed into global diasporas. * In
Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...
, many
Vietnamese people The Vietnamese people (, ) or the Kinh people (), also known as the Viet people or the Viets, are a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to modern-day northern Vietnam and Dongxing, Guangxi, southern China who speak Vietnamese language, Viet ...
emigrated to France and later millions of other Vietnamese people migrated to the United States, Australia and Canada after the Cold War-related
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...
of 1955–1975. Later, 30,000 French ''colons'' from Cambodia were displaced after they were expelled by the 1975–1979
Khmer Rouge The Khmer Rouge is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and by extension to Democratic Kampuchea, which ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name was coined in the 1960s by Norodom Sihano ...
regime under
Pol Pot Pol Pot (born Saloth Sâr; 19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998) was a Cambodian politician, revolutionary, and dictator who ruled the communist state of Democratic Kampuchea from 1976 until Cambodian–Vietnamese War, his overthrow in 1979. During ...
. A small, predominantly Muslim ethnic group, the
Cham people The Chams (Cham language, Cham: , چام, ''cam''), or Champa people (Cham language, Cham: , اوراڠ چمڤا, ''Urang Campa''; or ; , ), are an Austronesian peoples, Austronesian ethnic group in Southeast Asia and are the original inhabi ...
, long residing in Cambodia, were nearly eradicated. The mass exodus of Vietnamese people from Vietnam from 1975 onwards led to the popularisation of the term "
boat people Vietnamese boat people () were refugees who fled Vietnam by boat and ship following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. This migration and humanitarian crisis was at its highest in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but continued well into the earl ...
". * In
Southwestern China Southwestern China () is a region in the People's Republic of China. It consists of five provincial administrative regions, namely Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and Xizang. Geography Southwestern China is a rugged and mountainous region, ...
, many
Tibetan people Tibetans () are an East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group Indigenous peoples, native to Tibet. Their current population is estimated to be around 7.7 million. In addition to the majority living in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, sig ...
emigrated to India, following the
14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (born 6 July 1935; full spiritual name: Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, shortened as Tenzin Gyatso; ) is the incumbent Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader and head of Tibetan Buddhism. He served a ...
after the failure of his
1959 Tibetan uprising The 1959 Tibetan uprising or Lhasa uprising began on 10 March 1959 as a series of protests in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, fueled by fears that the Chinese government planned to arrest the Dalai Lama. Over the next ten days, the demonstratio ...
. This wave lasted until the 1960s, and another wave followed when Tibet opened up to trade and tourism in the 1980s. It is estimated that about 200,000 Tibetans live now dispersed worldwide, half of them in India, Nepal and Bhutan. In lieu of lost citizenship papers, the
Central Tibetan Administration The Central Tibetan Administration (, , ) is the government-in-exile of Tibet, based in Dharamshala, India. It comprises a judiciary branch, a legislative branch, and an executive branch, and offers support and services to the Tibetan exile c ...
offers Green Book identity documents to Tibetan refugees. *
Sri Lankan Tamils Sri Lankan Tamils ( or ), also known as Ceylon Tamils or Eelam Tamils, are Tamils native to the South Asian island state of Sri Lanka. Today, they constitute a majority in the Northern Province, Sri Lanka, Northern Province, form the pluralit ...
have historically migrated to find work, notably, during the British colonial period (1796–1948). Since the beginning of the Sri Lankan Civil War in 1983, more than 800,000 Tamils have been displaced within Sri Lanka as a local diaspora, and over a half-million
Tamils The Tamils ( ), also known by their endonym Tamilar, are a Dravidian peoples, Dravidian ethnic group who natively speak the Tamil language and trace their ancestry mainly to the southern part of the Indian subcontinent. The Tamil language is o ...
have emigrated as the
Tamil diaspora The Tamil diaspora refers to descendants of the Tamil people, Tamil speaking Emigration, immigrants who emigrated from their native lands in the southern Indian subcontinent (Tamil Nadu, Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry and Sri Lanka) to ...
to destinations such as India, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK, and Europe. * The
Afghan diaspora Afghan diaspora refers to the Afghan people that domicile (law), reside and work (human activity), work outside of Afghanistan. They include natives and Afghan identity card, citizens of Afghanistan who have immigration, immigrated to other coun ...
resulted from the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union, resulting in the creation of the second-largest refugee population in the world (2.6 million in 2018). * Many Iranians fled from the 1979
Iranian Revolution The Iranian Revolution (, ), also known as the 1979 Revolution, or the Islamic Revolution of 1979 (, ) was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution led to the replacement of the Impe ...
which culminated in the fall of the USA/British-ensconced
Shah Shāh (; ) is a royal title meaning "king" in the Persian language.Yarshater, Ehsa, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII, no. 1 (1989) Though chiefly associated with the monarchs of Iran, it was also used to refer to the leaders of numerous Per ...
. * In
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
, a new series of diasporas was formed after the end of colonial rule. In some cases, as countries became independent, numerous minority descendants of Europeans emigrated; others stayed. *
Uganda Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...
expelled 80,000 South Asians in 1972 and took over their businesses and properties. * The 1990–1994
Rwandan Civil War The Rwandan Civil War was a large-scale civil war in Rwanda which was fought between the Rwandan Armed Forces, representing the country's government, and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) from 1October 1990 to 18 July 1994. The war arose ...
between rival social/ethnic groups (
Hutu The Hutu (), also known as the Abahutu, are a Bantu ethnic group native to the African Great Lakes region. They mainly live in Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda where they form one of the principal ethnic groups alongside the Tutsi and the Great L ...
and
Tutsi The Tutsi ( ), also called Watusi, Watutsi or Abatutsi (), are an ethnic group of the African Great Lakes region. They are a Bantu languages, Bantu-speaking ethnic group and the second largest of three main ethnic groups in Rwanda and Burundi ( ...
) turned deadly and produced a mass efflux of refugees. * In
Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...
, following the 1959
Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution () was the military and political movement that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who had ruled Cuba from 1952 to 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, in which Batista overthrew ...
and the introduction of
communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...
, over a million people have left Cuba. * A new
Jamaican diaspora The Jamaican diaspora refers to the body of Jamaicans who have left the country of Jamaica, their descendants, and to a lesser extent the subsequent developments of their culture. Jamaicans can be found in the far corners of the world, but the ...
formed around the start of the 21st century. More than 1 million
Dominicans Dominicans () also known as Quisqueyans () are an ethnic group, ethno-nationality, national people, a people of shared ancestry and culture, who have ancestral roots in the Dominican Republic. The Dominican ethnic group was born out of a fusio ...
live abroad, a majority living in the US. * A million Colombian refugees have left Colombia since 1965 to escape violence and civil wars. * Thousands of
Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...
and Uruguay refugees fled to Europe during periods of military rule in the 1970s and 1980s. * In
Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...
,
Nicaraguans Nicaraguans (; also called ''Nicas'') are people inhabiting in, originating or having significant heritage from Nicaragua. Most Nicaraguans live in Nicaragua, although there is also a significant Nicaraguan diaspora, particularly in Costa Rica a ...
, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans have fled conflict and poor economic conditions. * Hundreds of thousands of people fled from the
Rwandan genocide The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred from 7 April to 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. Over a span of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Gre ...
in 1994 and moved into neighboring countries. * Between 4 and 6 million have emigrated from Zimbabwe beginning in the 1990s especially since 2000, greatly increasing the
Zimbabwean diaspora The Zimbabwean diaspora refers to the diaspora of immigrants from the nation of Zimbabwe and their descendants who now reside in other countries. The number of Zimbabweans living outside Zimbabwe varies significantly from 4 to 7 million people, ...
due to a protracted socioeconomic crisis, forming large communities in South Africa, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and smaller communities in
the United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, New Zealand and Ireland. The long war in Congo, in which numerous nations have been involved, has also result in millions of displaced refugees. * A South Korean diaspora movement during the 1990s caused the homeland fertility rate to drop when a large amount of the middle class emigrated, as the rest of the population continued to age. To counteract the change in these demographics, the South Korean government initiated a diaspora-engagement policy in 1997.


21st century


Middle East

The
2015 European migrant crisis The 2015 European migrant crisis was a period of significantly increased movement of refugees and migrants into Europe, mostly from the Middle East. An estimated 1.3 million people came to the continent to request asylum, the most in a single ...
was a period of significantly increased movement of
refugee A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...
s and migrants into Europe, namely from the
Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
. An estimated 1.3 million people came to the continent to request asylum, the most in a single year since
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. They were mostly
Syrians Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine Arabic, Levantine and Mesopotamian Arabic, Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The culture of Syria, cultural ...
, but also included a significant number of people from
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
,
Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...
,
Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
,
Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...
,
Eritrea Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...
, and the
Balkans The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...
. The increase in asylum seekers has been attributed to factors such as the escalation of various wars in the
Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
and
ISIL The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS occupied signif ...
's territorial and military dominance in the region due to the
Arab Winter The Arab Winter () is a term referring to the resurgence of authoritarianism and Islamic extremism in some Arab countries in the 2010s in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. The term "Arab Winter" refers to the events across Arab League countrie ...
, as well as Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt ceasing to accept Syrian asylum seekers. The EU attempted to enact some measures to address the problem, including distributing refugees among member countries, tackling root causes of emigration in the home countries of migrants, and simplifying deportation processes. However, due to a lack of political coordination at the European level, the distribution of countries was unequal, with some countries taking in many more refugees than others. The initial responses of national governments varied greatly. Many
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
(EU) governments reacted by closing their borders, and most countries refused to take in the arriving refugees. Germany would ultimately accept most of the refugees after the government decided to temporarily suspend its enforcement of the
Dublin Regulation The Dublin Regulation (Regulation No. 604/2013; sometimes the Dublin III Regulation; previously the Dublin II Regulation and Dublin Convention) is a Regulation of the European Union that determines which EU member state is responsible for the ...
. Germany would receive over 440,000 asylum applications (0.5% of the population). Other countries that took in a significant number of refugees include Hungary (174,000; 1.8%), Sweden (156,000; 1.6%) and Austria (88,000; 1.0%). The crisis had significant political consequences in Europe. The influx of migrants caused significant demographic and cultural changes in these countries. As a consequence, the public showed anxiety towards the sudden influx of immigrants, often expressing concerns over a perceived danger to European values. Political polarization increased, confidence in the European Union fell, and many countries tightened their asylum laws.
Right-wing populist Right-wing populism, also called national populism and right populism, is a political ideology that combines right-wing politics with populist rhetoric and themes. Its rhetoric employs anti- elitist sentiments, opposition to the Establishm ...
parties capitalized on public anxiety and became significantly more popular in many countries. There was an increase in protests regarding immigration and the circulation of the
white nationalist White nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that white people are a Race (human categorization), raceHeidi Beirich and Kevin Hicks. "Chapter 7: White nationalism in America". In Perry, Barbara ...
conspiracy theory of the
Great Replacement The Great Replacement (), also known as replacement theory or great replacement theory, is a debunked white nationalist far-right conspiracy theoryPT71. espoused by French author Renaud Camus. The original theory states that, with the complicit ...
. Nonetheless, despite the political consequences, a 2023 study leveraging quantified economic metrics (such as chained GDP and the inflation rate) concluded that the events ultimately resulted in a “low but positive impact” to the German economy.


Venezuelan refugee crisis

The
Venezuelan refugee crisis The Venezuelan refugee crisis, the List of largest refugee crises, largest recorded refugee crisis in the Americas, * * * * refers to the emigration of millions of Venezuelans from their native country during the presidencies of Hugo C ...
, the largest recorded refugee crisis in the
Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...
, * * * * refers to the emigration of millions of
Venezuelans Venezuelans ( Spanish: ''venezolanos'') are the citizens identified with the country of Venezuela. This connection may be through citizenship, descent or cultural. For most Venezuelans, many or all of these connections exist and are the source ...
from their native country during the presidencies of
Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; ; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician, Bolivarian Revolution, revolutionary, and Officer (armed forces), military officer who served as the 52nd president of Venezuela from 1999 until De ...
and
Nicolás Maduro Nicolás Maduro Moros (; born 23 November 1962) is a Venezuelan politician and former union leader serving as the 53rd president of Venezuela since 2013. Previously, he was the 24th Vice President of Venezuela, vice president from 2012 to 20 ...
since the
Bolivarian Revolution The Bolivarian Revolution is a social revolution and ongoing political process in Venezuela that was started by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, the founder of the Fifth Republic Movement and later the United Socialist Party of Venezuela ...
. The revolution was an attempt by Chávez and later Maduro to establish a
cultural Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...
and political hegemony, which culminated in the
crisis in Venezuela An ongoing socioeconomic and political crisis began in Venezuela during the presidency of Hugo Chávez and has worsened during the presidency of successor Nicolás Maduro. It has been marked by hyperinflation, escalating starvation, disease, c ...
. The resulting refugee crisis has been compared to those faced by
Cuban exile A Cuban exile is a person who has been exiled from Cuba. Many Cuban exiles have various differing experiences as emigrants depending on when they emigrated from Cuba, and why they emigrated. The exile of Cubans has been a dominating factor in C ...
s, Syrian refugees and those affected by the
European migrant crisis The 2015 European migrant crisis was a period of significantly increased movement of refugees and Human migration, migrants into Europe, mostly from the Middle East. An estimated 1.3 million people came to the continent to request Right of asyl ...
. The Bolivarian government has denied any migratory crisis, stating that the United Nations and others are attempting to justify foreign intervention within Venezuela. ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...
'' described the "Bolivarian diaspora" as "a reversal of fortune on a massive scale", where the reversal refers to Venezuela's high immigration rate during the 20th century. Initially, upper class Venezuelans and scholars emigrated during Chávez's presidency, but middle- and lower-class Venezuelans began to leave as conditions worsened in the country. This has caused a brain drain that affects the nation, due to the large number of emigrants who are educated or skilled. During the crisis, Venezuelans have been asked about their desire to leave their native country; over 30 percent of respondents to a December 2015 survey said that they planned to permanently leave Venezuela. The percentage nearly doubled the following September as, according to Datincorp, 57 percent of respondents wanted to leave the country. By mid-2019, over four million Venezuelans had emigrated since the revolution began in 1999. The
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
predicted that by the end of 2019, there would have been over 5 million recorded emigrants during the Venezuelan crisis, over 15% of the population. A late-2018 study by the
Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as Brookings, is an American think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global econo ...
suggested that emigration would reach 6 million – approximately 20% of Venezuela's 2017 population – by the end of 2019, with a mid-2019 poll by Consultares 21 estimating that up to 6 million Venezuelans had fled the country by this point; estimates going into 2020 suggested that the number of Venezuelan migrants and refugees was overtaking the 6 million figure, at this time the same number of refugees from the Syrian Civil War, which started years before the recorded Venezuelan crisis and was considered the worst humanitarian disaster in the world at the time. Estimates had risen to 7.1 million by October 2022, over 20 percent of the country's population. The
Norwegian Refugee Council The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC; ) is a humanitarian, non-governmental organisation that protects the rights of people affected by displacement. This includes refugees and internally displaced persons who are forced to flee their homes as a res ...
, the
Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as Brookings, is an American think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global econo ...
and the
Organization of American States The Organization of American States (OAS or OEA; ; ; ) is an international organization founded on 30 April 1948 to promote cooperation among its member states within the Americas. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, the OAS is ...
commissioner for the Venezuelan refugee crisis,
David Smolansky David Smolansky Urosa (born May 27, 1985) is a Venezuelan political leader and deputy director of the ConVzla Presidential Campaign representing the opposition democratic leader, Maria Corina Machado, and President-Elect, Edmundo Gonzalez in ...
, have estimated that the crisis is also one of the most underfunded refugee crisis in modern history. According to the
UNHCR The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and Humanitarian protection, protect refugees, Internally displaced person, forcibly displaced communities, and Statelessness, s ...
, more than 7.7 million people have emigrated from Venezuela in the years corresponding to Maduro's rise to power and the consolidation of
Chavismo ''Chavismo'' (from ), also known in English as Chavism or Chavezism, is a left-wing populist political ideology based on the ideas, programs and government style associated with the Venezuelan President between 1999 and 2013 Hugo Chávez that ...
. From May to August 2023, 390,000 Venezuelans left their country, driven by despair over challenging living conditions, characterized by low wages, rampant inflation, lack of public services, and political repression. However, R4V suggests that these figures could be even higher, as many migrants without regular status are not included in the count. The organization's calculation method is based on asylum requests and refugee registrations in each country, which might exclude those in irregular situations. Despite the upcoming presidential elections, hope is scarce among Venezuelans. Many fear that through manipulations and frauds, Maduro might "get re-elected" and remain in power for another six years, despite his unpopularity. In this scenario, emigration might continue to be a constant in Venezuela's near future.


Diaspora Internet services

Numerous web-based news portals and forum sites are dedicated to specific diaspora communities, often organized on the basis of an origin characteristic and a current location characteristic. The location-based networking features of mobile applications such as China's
WeChat WeChat or Weixin in Chinese ( zh, c=微信, p=Wēixìn , l=micro-message) is an instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment mobile app, app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world's largest standalone mobile a ...
have also created online diaspora communities when used outside of their home markets. Now, large companies from the emerging countries are looking at leveraging diaspora communities to enter the more mature market.


Diaspora languages

The term
diaspora language The term diaspora language, coined in the 1980s, is a sociolinguistic idea referring to a variety of languages spoken by peoples with common roots who have dispersed, under various pressures and often globally. The emergence and evolution of a ...
, coined in the 1980s, is a
sociolinguistic Sociolinguistics is the descriptive, scientific study of how language is shaped by, and used differently within, any given society. The field largely looks at how a language changes between distinct social groups, as well as how it varies unde ...
idea referring to a variety of
language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
s spoken by peoples with common roots who have dispersed, under various pressures and often globally. The emergence and evolution of a diaspora language is usually part of a larger attempt to retain cultural identity. Examples are
Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...
,
African American Vernacular English African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban communities, by most working- and middle-class African Americans and some Black Canadians. Having its own unique grammatical, voca ...
, Yoruba, Molise Slavic, Istro-Romanian,
Griko Griko (endonym: /), sometimes spelled Grico, is one of the two dialects of Italiot Greek (the other being Calabrian Greek or ), spoken by Griko people in Salento, province of Lecce, Italy. Some Greek linguists consider it to be a Modern Greek ...
,
Gallo-Italic of Sicily The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages Languages of Italy#Northern Italy, of northern Italy: Piedmontese language, Piedmontese, Lombard language, Lombard, Em ...
,
Talian Talian may refer to: Places * Talian, Iran, a village in Tehran province, Iran * Dhok Talian, a village in Punjab, Pakistan People * Jozef Talian (born 1985), Slovak footballer Other uses *Talian dialect Talian (, ), or Brazilian Venetian, or ...
,
Cocoliche Cocoliche is an Italian language, Italian–Spanish language, Spanish Macaronic language, contact language or pidgin that was spoken by Italian settlement in Argentina, Italian immigrants between 1870 and 1970 in Argentina (especially in Gran Bu ...
,
Lunfardo Lunfardo (; from the Italian ) is an argot originated and developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the lower classes in the Río de la Plata region (encompassing the port cities of Buenos Aires in Argentina and Montevideo in Uruguay) ...
and Arbëresh.


In popular culture

''
Gran Torino ''Gran Torino'' is a 2008 American drama film directed, produced by and starring Clint Eastwood. It features a significant Hmong American cast, a first for mainstream American films. The score was composed by Kyle Eastwood and Michael Steve ...
'', a 2008 drama starring
Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western (genre), Western TV series ''Rawhide (TV series), Rawhide'', Eastwood rose to international fame with his role as the "Ma ...
, was the first mainstream American film to feature the
Hmong American Hmong Americans ( RPA: ''Hmoob Mes Kas'', Pahawh Hmong: "") are Americans of Hmong ancestry. Many Hmong Americans immigrated to the United States as refugees in the late 1970s, with a second wave in the 1980s and 1990s. Over half of the Hmong ...
diaspora.


See also

* List of diasporas *
List of sovereign states by immigrant and emigrant population These are lists of countries by foreign-born population (immigrants) and lists of countries by number native-born persons living in a foreign country (emigrants). According to the United Nations, in 2019, the United States, Germany, Saudi Arabi ...
* Diaspora politics *
Diaspora politics in the United States A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of birth, place of origin. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently resi ...
*
Human migration Human migration is the movement of people from one place to another, with intentions of settling, permanently or temporarily, at a new location (geographic region). The movement often occurs over long distances and from one country to another ( ...
*
Integration of immigrants The integration of immigrants or migrant integration is primarily the process of socioeconomic integration of immigrants and their descendants into a society through emancipatory and collective care values of the host country. Secondarily, it i ...
*
Population transfer Population transfer or resettlement is a type of mass migration that is often imposed by a state policy or international authority. Such mass migrations are most frequently spurred on the basis of ethnicity or religion, but they also occur d ...
**
Population transfer in the Soviet Union From 1930 to 1952, the government of the Soviet Union, on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and under the direction of the NKVD official Lavrentiy Beria, forcibly transferred populations of various groups. These actions may be classif ...


Specific diasporas

* Kurdish refugees *
Anti-Romani sentiment Anti-Romani sentiment (also called antigypsyism, anti-Romanyism, antiziganism, ziganophobia, or Romaphobia) is an ideology which consists of hostility, prejudice, discrimination, racism, and xenophobia which is specifically directed at Romani ...
** History of the Romani people ***
Romani Holocaust The Romani Holocaust was the genocide of European Roma and Sinti people during World War II. Beginning in 1933, Nazi Germany systematically persecuted the European Roma, Sinti and other peoples pejoratively labeled 'Gypsy' through forcible ...
*
Rural exodus Rural flight (also known as rural-to-urban migration, rural depopulation, or rural exodus) is the Human migration, migratory pattern of people from rural areas into urban areas. It is urbanization seen from the rural perspective. In Industriali ...


Religious diasporas

*
Ummah ' (; ) is an Arabic word meaning Muslim identity, nation, religious community, or the concept of a Commonwealth of the Muslim Believers ( '). It is a synonym for ' (, lit. 'the Islamic nation'); it is commonly used to mean the collective com ...
*
Jewish history Jewish history is the history of the Jews, their Jewish peoplehood, nation, Judaism, religion, and Jewish culture, culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. Jews originated from the Israelites and H ...
**
Antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
***
Persecution of Jews The persecution of Jews has been a major event in Jewish history prompting shifting waves of refugees and the formation of diaspora communities. As early as 605 BC, Jews who lived in the Neo-Babylonian Empire were persecuted and deported. Antis ...
**** History of the Jews during World War II *****
The Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
**
Expulsions and exoduses of Jews This article lists expulsions, refugee crises and other forms of displacement that have affected Jews. Timeline The following is a list of Jewish expulsions and events that prompted significant streams of Jewish refugees. Assyrian captivity ...
****
The Exodus The Exodus (Hebrew language, Hebrew: יציאת מצרים, ''Yəṣīʾat Mīṣrayīm'': ) is the Origin myth#Founding myth, founding myth of the Israelites whose narrative is spread over four of the five books of the Torah, Pentateuch (specif ...
*** Jewish exodus from the Muslim world **
Yom HaAliyah Yom HaAliyah, or Aliyah Day (), is an Israeli national holiday celebrated annually on the tenth of the Jewish calendar, Hebrew month of Nisan to commemorate the Jews, Jewish people entering the Land of Israel which the Hebrew Bible says happene ...


Country-specific diasporas

* Exodusters (African American) *
Great Migration (African American) The Great Migration, sometimes known as the Great Northward Migration or the Black Migration, was the movement of six million African Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West between 1910 an ...
*
History of immigration to the United States Throughout U.S. history, the country experienced successive waves of immigration, particularly from Europe and later on from Asia and from Latin America. Colonial-era immigrants often repaid the cost of transoceanic transportation by becomi ...


Forced migration

*
Forced displacement Forced displacement (also forced migration or forced relocation) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: displaced "as a result of perse ...
*
Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany The Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany during World War II was a massive operation consisting of the forced resettlement of over 1.7 million Polish people, Poles from the territories of Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), German-occupied Poland, ...
*
Expulsion of the Acadians The Expulsion of the Acadians was the forced removal of inhabitants of the North American region historically known as Acadia between 1755 and 1764 by Great Britain. It included the modern Canadian Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Br ...
* Expulsion of the Moriscos *
Forced settlements in the Soviet Union Special settlements in the Soviet Union were the result of population transfers and were performed in a series of operations organized according to social class or nationality of the deported. Resettling of "enemy classes" such as prosperous ...
* List of expulsions of African Americans *
Long Walk of the Navajo The Long Walk of the Navajo, also called the Long Walk to Bosque Redondo (), was the deportation and ethnic cleansing of the Navajo people by the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government and the United States A ...
*
Trail of Tears The Trail of Tears was the forced displacement of about 60,000 people of the " Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850, and the additional thousands of Native Americans and their black slaves within that were ethnically cleansed by the U ...


Conflicts and genocides

*
Ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it ...
* List of ethnic cleansing campaigns * Late Ottoman genocides **
Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily t ...
**
Assyrian genocide The Sayfo (, ), also known as the Seyfo or the Assyrian genocide, was the mass murder and deportation of Assyrian/Syriac Christians in southeastern Anatolia and Persia's Azerbaijan province by Ottoman forces and some Kurdish tribes during ...
**
Great Famine of Mount Lebanon The Great Famine of Mount Lebanon (1915–1918) (; ), also known as Kafno (), was a period of famine, mass starvation on Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, Mount Lebanon during World War I that resulted in the deaths of about 200,000 people, most of who ...
**
Greek genocide The Greek genocide (), which included the Pontic genocide, was the systematic killing of the Christian Ottoman Greek population of Anatolia, which was carried out mainly during World War I and its aftermath (1914–1922) – including the T ...
*
Myanmar conflict Myanmar has been embroiled in armed conflict since 1948, when the country, then known as Burma, Burmese Declaration of Independence, gained independence from the United Kingdom. The conflict has largely been Ethnic conflict, ethnic-based, wit ...
** Persecution of Muslims in Myanmar ***
Rohingya conflict The Rohingya conflict is an List of ongoing armed conflicts, ongoing conflict in the northern part of Rakhine State, Myanmar (formerly known as Arakan, Burma), characterised by Sectarianism, sectarian violence between the Rohingya people, Ro ...
****
Rohingya genocide The Rohingya genocide is a series of ongoing persecutions and killings of the Islam in Myanmar, Muslim Rohingya people by the Tatmadaw (armed forces of Myanmar). The genocide has consisted of two phases to date: the first was a military crackd ...
*
Partition of India The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India into two independent dominion states, the Dominion of India, Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. The Union of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Paki ...
*
Xinjiang conflict The Xinjiang conflict ( zh, c=新疆冲突, p=xīnjiāng chōngtú), also known as the East Turkistan conflict, Uyghur–Chinese conflict or Sino-East Turkistan conflict (as argued by the East Turkistan Government-in-Exile), is an ethnic g ...
**
Persecution of Uyghurs in China Since 2014, the government of the People's Republic of China has committed a series of ongoing human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities in Xinjiang which has often been characterized as persecution or as ...
*
World War II evacuation and expulsion Mass evacuation, forced displacement, expulsion, and deportation of millions of people took place across most countries involved in World War II. The Second World War caused the movement of the largest number of people in the shortest period of t ...
* Persecution of Yazidis **
Yazidi genocide The Yazidi genocide was perpetrated by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2017. It was characterized by massacres, genocidal rape, and forced conversions to Islam. The Yazidis are a Kurdish-speaking people who are indigenous ...


Statelessness

*
State collapse State collapse is a sudden dissolution of a sovereign state. It is often used to describe extreme situations in which state institutions dissolve rapidly. When a new regime moves in, often led by the military, civil society typically fails to ...
*
Statelessness In international law, a stateless person is someone who is "not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law". Some stateless people are also refugees. However, not all refugees are stateless, and many people who are s ...
*
Stateless nation A stateless nation is an ethnicity, ethnic group or nation that does not possess its own sovereign state.''Dictionary Of Public Administration'', U.C. Mandal, Sarup & Sons 2007, 505 p. Use of the term implies that such ethnic groups have the rig ...


References


Citations


Sources

* Barclay, John M. G. (ed.), ''Negotiating Diaspora: Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire'', Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004 * Baser, B. & Swain, A. ''Diasporas as Peacemakers: Third Party Mediation in Homeland Conflicts'' with Ashok Swain. International Journal on World Peace 25 (3), September 2008. * Braziel, Jana Evans. 2008. ''Diaspora: An Introduction''. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell. * * Bueltmann, Tanja, et al. eds. ''Locating the English Diaspora, 1500–2010'' (Liverpool University Press, 2012) * * * Délano Alonso, Alexandra & Mylonas, Harris. 2019.
The Microfoundations of Diaspora Politics: Unpacking the State and Disaggregating the Diaspora
, ''Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies'', Volume 45, Issue 4: 473–491. * * * Galil, Gershon, & Weinfeld, Moshe, ''Studies in Historical Geography and Biblical Historiography: Presented to Zekharyah Ḳalai'', Brill, 2000 * * Kantor, Mattis, ''The Jewish Timeline Encyclopedia: A Year-by-year History from Creation to the Present'', (new updated edition), Northvalem New Jersey: Jason Aronson, 1992 * * Luciuk, Lubomyr, ''Searching for Place: Ukrainian Displaced Persons, Canada and the Migration of Memory''. University of Toronto Press, 2000. * Mahroum, Sami & De Guchteneire, P. (2007), ''Transnational Knowledge Through Diaspora Networks-Editorial''. International Journal of Multicultural Societies 8 (1), pp. 1–3 * Mahroum, Sami; Eldridge, Cynthia; Daar, Abdallah S. (2006). ''Transnational diaspora options: How developing countries could benefit from their emigrant populations''. International Journal on Multicultural Societies, 2006. * Nesterovych, Volodymyr (2013).
Impact of ethnic diasporas on the adoption of normative legal acts in the United States
. Viche. 8: pp. 19–23. * Oonk, G., ''Global Indian Diasporas: trajectories of migration and theory'', Amsterdam University Press, 2007 Free downloa
here
* * Shain, Yossi, ''Kinship and Diasporas in International Politics'', Michigan University Press, 2007 * * Weheliye, Alexander G. "My Volk to Come: Peoplehood in Recent Diaspora Discourse and Afro-German Popular Music." Black Europe and the African Diaspora. Ed. Darlene Clark. Hine, Trica Danielle. Keaton, and Stephen Small. Urbana: University of Illinois, 2009. pp. 161–179. * * Xharra, B. & Wählisch, M. ''Beyond Remittances: Public Diplomacy and Kosovo's Diaspora'', Foreign Policy Club, Pristina (2012), abstract and free acces
here


Further reading

* Cohen, Robin, and Carolin Fischer (eds.) ''Routledge Handbook of Diaspora Studies'' (2019) * Gewecke, Frauke

(2012). University Bielefeld – Center for InterAmerican Studies. * Knott, Kim, and Sean McLoughlin, eds. ''Diasporas: Concepts, Intersections, Identities'' (2010) * Sheffer, Gabriel. ''Diaspora Politics: At Home Abroad'' (2006)


External links


Livius.org: Diaspora

Open access book on Diasporas

Integration: Building Inclusive Societies (IBIS)
UN Alliance of Civilizations online community on Good Practices of Integration of Migrants across the World
Diasporic Trajectories: Transnational Cultures in the 21st Century
Podcast playlist of a seminar series held in 2015 at the University of Edinburgh, School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures {{Authority control Diaspora studies