Random Mode Keyboard shortcut: Command/Ctrl + Shift + R
thumbnail

United States Immigration by Country

Name the top countries of origin for immigrants to the United States who have gained permanent residence during the years 2013–2022.
Note: Legal immigrants only
Quiz by Quizmaster
Rate:
Last updated: February 13, 2024
You have not attempted this quiz yet.
First submittedDecember 27, 2010
Times taken130,775
Average score81.8%
Rating4.71
4:00
Enter country here:
0
 / 22 guessed
The quiz is paused. You have remaining.
Scoring
You scored / = %
This beats or equals % of test takers also scored 100%
The average score is
Your high score is
Your fastest time is
Keep scrolling down for answers and more stats ...
#
Country
1,437,051
Mexico
716,704
India
662,524
China
459,051
Cuba
458,213
Dominican Republic
445,532
Philippines
312,176
Vietnam
229,011
El Salvador
#
Country
186,024
Jamaica
182,644
South Korea
179,579
Colombia
167,839
Brazil
156,172
Haiti
148,306
Pakistan
133,852
Nigeria
#
Country
131,158
Bangladesh
124,779
Venezuela
121,235
Guatemala
116,204
Honduras
113,824
Canada
112,110
Nepal
111,261
Afghanistan
+32
Level 41
Oct 12, 2013
They must only be counting legal immigration for Mexico because there's more than 500,000 that walk across the border annually
+92
Level 44
Jan 19, 2015
it is unknown. But usually right groups way over inflate the numbers, A politican here in AZ said 15 million a year, and then there are other groups that say it is like 5K a year.. it lies somewhere in hte middle but closer to 5K than 15 million.. whatever the case, building a fence isn't the answer it is more complex than that
+26
Level 62
Jan 2, 2018
The wall is part of a larger comprehensive immigration reform plan -- Raise Act, Visa reform, ending chain migration, ending the lottery program, increased border security and number of officers etc. The wall itself will only accomplish so much, but when combined with these other actions it is an integral part of a bigger plan to keep Americans safe.
+82
Level 75
Feb 14, 2018
That's hilarious - if it were 15 million per year then Mexico would be deserted in under a decade
+41
Level 82
Feb 18, 2018
roley: yeah that's absurd. If we want to be kind to the politician in question we could say he got confused and quoted the number of Mexican immigrants in the US in total, not that come annually, and the number is probably close to being right.

tshalla: you're oversimplifying.

UrinePig: everything Trump has planned- though calling it a plan is really giving him way more credit than he deserves, let's say everything Trump was word vomited- is some combination of stupid, counter-productive, redundant, or unnecessary. All of it is red meat thrown to his supporters that are bigots, racists and xenophobes. Very little of it is informed by anything like a constructive policy idea. The small bits that are are things that have been fed to him by the likes of Steve Bannon who see themselves as defenders of Western civilization and immigration as corrosive. While I don't disagree with Bannon on everything these people are at best ignorant and misguided.

+39
Level 82
Mar 15, 2018
Yeah, TinklePork, you really drunk the Kool Aid on that one. The wall is complete nonsense - incredibly expensive, ineffective and completely redundant even if it were effective.
+8
Level 70
Jul 15, 2018
The invaders, interlopers, and armies never got through the Great Wall... oh wait. But, it'll work this time.
+11
Level 88
Jul 23, 2018
An enormous portion of the border is the Rio Grande. Out of curiosity, what there? You can't run it through the middle of an international waterway, can't put it on Mexican land, so...just block off American access to one of the major rivers of the U.S., the only substantial water hole for people anywhere along that arid stretch of country?
+8
Level 50
Jan 23, 2020
TinklePork: Nonsense.
+14
Level 59
Jan 26, 2020
@kalbahamut I personally do not support Trump, but my best friend is a Trump supporter and he's not a bigot, racist, or xenophobe. Just be careful throwing around sentences like that.
+2
Level 83
Feb 14, 2024
Even if he doesn't explicitly espouse those beliefs himself, he's turning a blind eye to people who do, which isn't a great position to be in.
+2
Level 73
Jul 14, 2020
senex: the commutative property can be applied to everyone. I don't know how left wing you are, but by the commutative property liberals are socialists and socialists are liberals; most people who identify as either would strongly disagree with this. I do agree that Trump is absolutely terrible, but when there's literally only two major parties the commutative property really falls flat. (Disclaimer: I may be misunderstanding what you mean by commutative property.)
+9
Level 82
Aug 23, 2020
"his supporters that are bigots" could be read to mean the portion of his supporters that fit that description. It doesn't have to be read to mean all of his supporters are bigots. Which I don't believe is true. Some Trump supporters are not racists or bigots, they're just okay with racism and bigotry. Or they literally never turn on the news.
+3
Level 51
Oct 7, 2020
The wall is too expensive. And the purpose is useless.
+1
Level 76
Aug 20, 2021
This comment chain didn't age well
+6
Level 82
Oct 10, 2021
The comment "this hasn't aged well" hasn't aged well. Just say what you mean.
+3
Level 45
Mar 5, 2022
The comment ''The comment "this hasn't aged well" hasn't aged well. Just say what you mean.'' hasn't aged well.
+2
Level 73
Mar 7, 2023
The comment "The comment "The comment "this hasn't aged well" hasn't aged well. Just say what you mean." hasn't aged well." has aged well. I vote for jarmez to challenge Quizmaster to a chessboxing match, the winner goes home with ownership of the website and the lease to jarmez's home.
+4
Level 48
Mar 10, 2019
500k per year seems quite a realistic, if you are just counting bodies crossing from Mexico. At least half of them is surely not Mexican but running running through Mexico from countries like Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and maybe even some of the islands in Caribbean.
+2
Level 50
Jan 23, 2020
I don't think you can give official permanent resident status to illegal immigrants, so no they probably are not counting them.
+3
Level 70
Mar 6, 2022
Why don't we have an e-verification system like Canada and most other countries? Why has our asylum system been repeatedly chipped away to give protections to people never intended to be protected by the law?

Whether you think immigration should be higher or lower, it's unfair to the American populace to expand immigration by blocking undermining enforcement.

+2
Level ∞
Feb 13, 2024
Note: This quiz only includes legal immigrants. If we included illegal immigration the numbers would be considerably higher, probably at least double.
+1
Level 34
Mar 18, 2024
geez this comment is ancient
+5
Level 55
Apr 10, 2015
Are refugees included? Somalia has got to be on the list!
+7
Level 70
Jun 10, 2017
Definitely not
+1
Level 36
Feb 19, 2018
I put in Somalia. I was certain that it would be on the list.

It must be dying down from when it was big in the middle of the last decade.

+3
Level 56
Feb 19, 2018
According to Pew, the highest number of refugees in 2016 came from D.R. Congo (16,300). About 9,000 came from Somalia, so even if refugees were counted (which I'm assuming they were not) Somalia would not quite make it onto this list.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/30/key-facts-about-refugees-to-the-u-s/

[and I realize this question is old enough that maybe the numbers are different, but I found a report from 2014 that also cites 9000 refugees for that year: https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Refugees_Asylees_2014.pdf]

+1
Level 72
Feb 13, 2024
Even if they were included, Somali refugees have a lot more options closer to home than the US.
+1
Level 79
May 25, 2015
Got Peru with 2 seconds to spare to get all 20
+1
Level 66
May 25, 2015
I'm 100% sure that I put Canada there. Should be my phone...
+2
Level 63
May 27, 2015
I was surprised that some countries were not on the list but figured it had to do with the "permanent residence status". Not all immigrants get a permanent residence status right when immigrating. There's always people with limited visas that would probably rise the numbers if included. If I got this right.
+5
Level 56
Jul 23, 2018
Indeed. From friends at school whose families eventually got Green cards, it seems to take 2~14 years to get through the process *after* you meet the requirements to apply.
+5
Level 82
Nov 11, 2019
Nobody gets permanent residence right when they immigrate. It takes at least 5 years and thousands of dollars, even via the easiest routes (eg, marriage).
+1
Level 33
Sep 30, 2016
Ireland or england acceptable for united kingdom?
+36
Level 44
Jan 30, 2017
1. Ireland is a completely independent nation separate from the UK.

2. England is more like a state within the UK, much like Scotland or Wales.

+1
Level 52
Feb 17, 2021
would be careful on this topic if you call england or scotland a state of the uk you may have nationalists at your throat
+6
Level 51
Oct 27, 2021
as a Londoner I don't really think there was a problem with using state. Its provides a good thing to compare to and well they have similar authority
+7
Level 59
Jan 26, 2020
Ireland... seriously, I really hope you're joking
+2
Level 72
Mar 24, 2020
As a matter of fact part of Ireland is in the UK. Maybe advisable to use "Eire" when you mean only the Republic. But even then perhaps that would mean the whole island to some.
+12
Level 73
Dec 21, 2017
Has anyone studied the stats comparing Canada & Us on things like murder rates and other violence? Incarceration rates? Life expectancy? Infant mortality? overall education? It goes on and on. I have traveled every state in US (except Hawaii), have many friends and family collections there. However -- I feel Canada is safer, kinder, more democratic, etc. Yes -- I'm biased, but also there are facts that entirely support what I am saying.
+8
Level 74
Dec 31, 2017
I would say for the people that are moving those statistics don't matter much. The reasonably wealthy who can afford to move can probably manage to avoid breaking the law, take care of their health, have healthy children, get a good education, etc. Just because a country has poor people, obese people, people who make bad choices and do drugs, etc. doesn't mean that everyone in that country or who moves to that country is going to have a reduced standard of living. Just because the US overall has a higher rate of incarceration and a lower life expectancy doesn't actually mean that a person who moves from Canada to the US is suddenly more likely to get arrested or die.
+5
Level 74
Feb 3, 2018
Most everything you listed in your stats are personal lifestyle choices. If you choose to live in bad neighborhoods, bad things will happen -- I would be willing to bet the same could be said of Canada. Incarceration? Don't commit any crimes and this won't be a problem for you. Life expectancy? Again, where and how you live determines that -- as it would in Canada. Why does overall education matter to you if you have an education? If you're talking quality for your children, private schools are top notch. While I have no doubt I wouldn't mind living in Canada, I'm not yet ready to give up on the US. Both have positives and both have negatives. It's what you do in your own life with those life choices that make either or both country ideal for you.
+28
Level 44
Feb 5, 2018
Your mindset is one of privilege.

If you are born into a poor neighbourhood you do not have any choice. Most people who live in poor neighbourhoods are born in poor neighbourhoods.

At least in Canada people have access to universal health care and a reasonably compatible education.

+12
Level 69
Jan 27, 2020
Choose to live in bad neighborhoods. Life expectancy based on your personal good behavior. Overall education doesn’t matter.

I’d be laughing if it wasn’t so horrifying.

+3
Level 82
Feb 5, 2018
There are many areas in the US where the public schools are much better than the private schools and also among the best in the world. But it's a big country.
+2
Level 56
Mar 5, 2022
Yeah, public schools zoned for rich neighbourhoods. But that's part of the criticism.
+1
Level 82
May 3, 2022
Zoned for rich neighborhoods? What? Public schools are paid for by local tax dollars. So, if you have a rich neighborhood, the schools in that neighborhood end up being better-funded. It's just a natural occurrence of having locally-run school districts.
+1
Level 82
Feb 5, 2018
Also, good points Frost and Kapul, and fair enough Clovers, but... for the overwhelming majority of people including most that are included in these stats, they move for economic reasons. Jobs, salary, opportunity... with smaller numbers moving for other reasons.
+3
Level 65
Feb 19, 2018
Statistically speaking, Canada does not have a hot desert. So if a Canadian person wants to live in a big city in a hot desert in a place that is culturally and physically close. Probably has more to do with not shoveling snow than other factors, such as health care and the glaring superiority of our 3-color flag vs. their 2-color one.
+2
Level 33
Nov 4, 2019
Canada's cannot even compare to our flag! Its not even American!
+5
Level 59
Jan 26, 2020
Yeah! I don't see any stars! not even stripes!
+2
Level 82
Feb 21, 2018
I hadn't considered the flag issue. That's a good point.
+3
Level 68
Feb 24, 2018
The Canadian flag is one of the most recognizable in the world, and in my opinion a great design.
+2
Level 82
Feb 25, 2018
oh come on, kiwi, that was obviously a joke. Though if we're going to take it seriously I do find Canada's and pretty much any bi-color flags to be bland.
+4
Level 75
Nov 6, 2019
I think the US flag is horribly garish.

But who cares what it looks like? It's just a symbol

+4
Level 92
Jan 23, 2020
Honestly, I wish more people cared about flag design. The US and Canadian flags are both solid examples of good design (the US flag flirts with being over-complicated, but makes up for it in symbolism). National Flags are usually pretty good, though tending towards the bland, but state/province/county and especially city flags are often really really bad.

This video is worth your time on the subject.

+2
Level 82
Oct 18, 2020
I think the American flag strikes the perfect balance between being too busy and too simple.
+4
Level 71
Jul 30, 2021
I think I prefer the Canadian flag over the US flag, but I don't die-hard love either of them. The Kazakhstan flag on the other hand is truly a work of art! (I'm not joking, I think Kazakhstan's flag is beautiful)
+2
Level 51
Oct 27, 2021
I love the Uk's one and the Nordic country's flag (NOT SWEDEN, IKEA HAS TRAUMATIZED ME) also St Lucia and many island countries have beautiful flags. Personally, I think some middle eastern, balkan and African flags are horrible simply because they are way too similar
+1
Level 57
Mar 8, 2022
What is your point with this comment though? Immigrants make up a greater % of Canada's population than the US.
+3
Level 70
Jan 8, 2024
As a Canadian, people like to oversimplify things, but for Americans it really is a 'grass is greener on the other side' type of situation. Depending on your career choice, the US may be a much more innovative and competitive market, with higher salaries than in Canada. People move for opportunity, they don't look at statistics on the Global Peace Index or the HDI rankings and choose from there. Canadians like to cling to these statistics too, due to our perceived lack of acknowledgement and distinctiveness from the US on the world stage, but life in Canada is still part of a general North American flavour.
+1
Level 81
Dec 22, 2017
People appear to be forgetting all the countries beginning with E
+3
Level 71
Feb 6, 2018
Try the other way, Countries US Citizens have moved to .........here it is
+1
Level 56
Feb 19, 2018
Thank you for the link!
+3
Level 58
Feb 18, 2018
Part of my strategy for this quiz was just to guess all the nationalities of immigrants in my area, since I live 10 minutes away from the US border. Then I guessed a bunch of Latin American that were close to the US. Funny though that it never occurred to me that Canada is also close to the US.... *facepalm*
+1
Level 52
Feb 18, 2018
Some of these were quite hard actually.
+1
Level 82
Feb 25, 2018
I think if you ever lived certain places in the United States, for example Washington, New York, or Los Angeles, then the quiz is quite a bit easier.
+2
Level 62
Feb 18, 2018
Durn! Norway is not in the list. :)
+1
Level 88
Feb 18, 2018
Surprisingly got them all!
+3
Level 75
Feb 18, 2018
When you miss one because you're sure you already typed it. Sigh.
+2
Level 43
Feb 26, 2019
That happens to me all the time, ugh.
+16
Level 59
Feb 18, 2018
Surprised not to see New Jersey on this list. Those people are everywhere.
+1
Level 68
Feb 24, 2018
Got them all but one - never knew Ethiopia would be up there.
+3
Level 66
Jan 20, 2019
This was HARD especially if you arent from the usa. The countries we get the bulk of immigrants from werent event on the list! Hardly any arab countries, actually, just egypt. And no turkey
+4
Level 82
Mar 10, 2019
The USA isn't Europe. Different geography, different history, different foreign relationships.
+2
Level 83
Feb 14, 2024
And I think sifhraven was aware of that, just commenting on how strikingly different it is.
+1
Level 87
Jul 10, 2019
Your source mentions Austria-Hungary. Austria-Hungary?!
+7
Level 82
Sep 21, 2019
They must have been waiting a very long time for their residency status to come through.
+1
Level 82
Jan 22, 2020
Still, it lasted 13 years longer than Norway-Sweden. No mention of China though in the notes?
+2
Level 59
Nov 3, 2019
missed Haiti :(
+2
Level 72
Jan 22, 2020
Surprised to see no Venezuela!
+3
Level 51
Oct 27, 2021
most are too poor to afford the journey up to the USA and stay in Brazil, Colombia or something nearby
+1
Level 82
Jan 23, 2020
I'm guessing Venezuela will make it for 2019. Was this only just updated for 2018 now?
+3
Level 76
Jan 25, 2020
Not a lot of European countries these days. I was expecting to see at least one from the East.
+1
Level 69
Jan 27, 2020
After guessing the obvious UK, I only tried Moldova. I figure, if Moldova’s not on there, nobody else from Europe is coming.
+2
Level 82
Jan 29, 2020
Moldova is quite small though.
+6
Level 82
Aug 23, 2020
Much easier for Eastern Europeans these days to migrate to Western Europe. Especially since some Eastern European countries are now in the EU, and the Iron Curtain has come down. The biggest waves of East European immigrants to the United States occurred from the early to mid 19th century and on into the mid 20th century, with a huge spike from about 1880 to 1920, and another large increase after World War 2. Not a whole lot coming in these days, comparatively speaking.
+3
Level 51
Oct 27, 2021
exactly why i voted Brexit
+1
Level 95
Feb 14, 2024
Except it didn't work did it?
+6
Level 82
Feb 1, 2022
You just said the quiet part out loud. Whoops. Though of course anyone not being silly knows that this is pretty much the only reason.
+1
Level 57
Mar 8, 2022
I would assume most of the immigrants from European nations have already settled in America. This is only including the last 10 years.
+1
Level 75
Mar 5, 2022
Tried the major Central American countries, when I saw Guatemala was last on the list I assumed El Salvador wouldn't be there... Must be bad in the land of the Saviour.
+1
Level 73
Feb 13, 2024
El Salvador hasn't been in a good spot recently. Corruption is rife (or at least it has been) and gangs hold huge influence in the country. For many years, gangs were effectively more powerful than the government. It looks like things finally started getting a bit better in 2020, though I don't know if those successes will continue or how long their impact will last.

Guatemala was in a horrible spot for a while too. Their civil war and most recent dictatorship ended in 1996, and the government seems to have been a democracy since. However, the same has been true of El Salvador since 1992. I'm truthfully not sure how the situation in Guatemala compares.

+1
Level 41
Mar 5, 2022
It is lie. 500.000 Turkish immigrant live in USA. There must be Turkey too
+4
Level ∞
Mar 5, 2022
Read the instructions.
+3
Level 57
Mar 8, 2022
I'd be interested to see this but with what % of a countries population has immigrated to the US. For example a much lower % of China's population are immigrants to the US than Jamaica
+1
Level 85
Feb 13, 2024
I love this idea! It would be super interesting and most of the list would be completely different. I'd imagine a lot of small Caribbean countries would be on the list. For example there are over 30k people in the US who were born in Grenada, but only about 120k people in Grenada itself.
+1
Level 68
May 24, 2023
The numbers for the Dominican Republic are crazy.

I thought this country was the best of in the Caribbean? Why so much immigration?

+2
Level ∞
Feb 13, 2024
Which country would you rather live in?
+8
Level 80
Feb 13, 2024
The fact that it is one of the more developed countries in the Caribbean is likely why it’s as high as it is. People can probably get an okay education which makes it more feasible to move to another country, and higher incomes make it so that they can afford to immigrate to the US, unlike a lot of other countries.
+2
Level 68
Feb 13, 2024
Dreading political comments XD
+3
Level 67
Feb 14, 2024
Any reason why Nepal's on this list? Kinda seems like an outlier compared to the others.
+1
Level 50
Feb 14, 2024
I don't know if it's super crazy to have a landlocked South Asian country on there - Afghanistan is a landlocked Central Asian (?) country and has similar numbers.

The second link on Google says: "As of 2019, there were 198,000 Nepalis living in the United States." https://aapihistorymuseum.org/nepali-migration-to-the-united-states/

+3
Level 83
Feb 14, 2024
Afghanistan is presumably on there for reasons related to war and the history of relations or non-relations between the countries. Nepal is a bit harder to justify in that sense.
+1
Level 71
Feb 19, 2024
There are a lot of areas of the country where there are Nepali-owned businesses everywhere; for example, near where I live in rural southeastern PA, there's a whole street essentially dedicated to Nepali businesses, something that's a rare find outside of major cities. Nepalis have immigrated here much like other South Asian group--economic opportunity--and many move here with their whole families, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents included. And to add to this, a lot of ethnic Nepali-speakers in America are refugees from Bhutan who faced discrimination and ethnic cleansing--not sure if this is reflected here because their country of origin would be Bhutan and they mostly identify as Bhutanese, but either way, they make a significant number of the "Nepali" immigrants where I live.
+1
Level 65
Mar 20, 2024
I'm one of them :)

It's not really an outlier, it's for the same reason as India