Net Migration by Decade, 1950-2020 (Beta Release, April 2023)

Lower 48 net migration map

From 2010 through 2019, an average of 17.5 million Americans—five to six percent of the population—moved to a different county annually. Migration rates vary by age, race, and ethnicity and with local and national social and economic conditions over time. Nonetheless, individual counties' patterns of age-specific migration tend to be consistent over time, telling demographic stories about local places. This website highlights these stories by providing reliable estimates of net migration broken down by age, race, Hispanic origin, and sex for all U.S. counties and states each decade from 1950 to 2020.

Click the tabs above to make maps and charts that allow you to visualize migration patterns. Charts make it easy to compare migration patterns over time within a single county or to compare patterns in two or three different counties. Maps show how counties across the country compare to one another. The data download tab allows you to download migration data as well as Census data for your own analysis.

We hope you'll find this website useful. Please contact us with any questions or comments.

Learn more about these data and the methods used to generate them.

Suggested Citation:

Egan-Robertson, David, Katherine J. Curtis, Richelle L. Winkler, Kenneth M. Johnson, and Caitlin Bourbeau, Age-Specific Net Migration Estimates for US Counties, 1950-2020. Applied Population Laboratory, University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2023 (Beta Release). Web. [Date of access.] https://netmigration.wisc.edu/.

Net Migration by County

2010s Total Net Migration Rate (ages 0-74)

Net Migrants per 100 Individuals

-5 or less
-4 to -1
0 to 4
5 to 19
20 or more

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Note: Charts combine some counties into groupings where boundaries have changed over the decades. Other counties are missing data from prior decades. A summary of the counties affected by these boundary changes is available.

Net Migration by Age

Egan-Robertson, David, Katherine J. Curtis, Richelle L. Winkler, Kenneth M. Johnson, and Caitlin Bourbeau, Age-Specific Net Migration Estimates for US Counties, 1950-2020. Applied Population Laboratory, University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2023 (Beta Release). Web.

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Some users may want to examine data for specific types of counties (e.g. metro vs. nonmetro, or based on economic resource base). The USDA Economic Research Service provides a county typology that can be a useful way of classifying counties.

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Data DictionaryDownload Full 2010s DatasetOther Full Datasets Available at ICPSR