Looks fantastic. As for the data, though, I wonder... this only shows movement into the US, and doesn't reflect movements out of the US or between other countries. I think a much more revealing visualization could be done with a more comprehensive set of data, particularly since I think US immigration as a proportion of the world's population has gone down dramatically in the last 100 years. I could be wrong, though.

Nice if it were slower too.

Beautiful work!
If you're seeking suggestions:
a slider for speed control
some audio would be nice
some statistical generalizations at the end
citation for the data

Thanks.

Very Interesting!

David I think you are right. The graph seems to completely lack and correlation to numeric populations nor does it account for reverse migration of people.

What made me suspect that the veracity of the data was that Australia (shown in purple) had a steady rate of immigration from 1820, since Australia became a penal colony in 1788 under charter and the first prisoners ships hit shore in 1890, the idea that large numbers of prisoners would be able to find transport in just 30 years to America is suspect at best.

Very interesting. The way of presenting the data is wonderful. I deal with this type of info for social studies books. The first thing that struck me, though, was the same as wageit's comment: the immigration stream from Australasia. Even though I took it to incude New Zealand and the islands of the Pacific, it's way too big. A number of Pacific entities became U.S. territory over the last 100+ years (Guam, Amer. Samoa, Hawaii, Micronesia, but that's not immigration, still wouldn't add up to such significant numbers and wouldn't be significant in each decade.

Hi All, I got the data from Dep of Homeland Security (dhs.gov/ximgtn/statistics/publications/LPR07.shtm). So it's purely immigration to the US (not including forced immigration during slavery, immigration out of the US, etc).

I might have mixed up a few numbers when I imported the data. It looks like Oceania has

arr... it looks like my last comment got cut-off. But yeah, Oceania has

hrmm... third times the charm... vimeo doesn't like the less than symbol. Oceania has LESS THAN 1000 immigrant per decade before 1900.

I also wanted to mention that this was actually for a small contest over at flowingdata.com. There are a lot of other good entries - this one didn't even win! Thanks for all the tips, by the way.

The Oceania dots appear to originate from Australasia on your map but Australasia and Oceania are very distinct entities. Oceania might be better represented as originating in the middle of the Pacific.

Hey, man. Saw your video on littlegreenfootballs.com and put it in a blog on my myspace. Very cool. You can look up my myspace under my name David Batson. I think its the only one.

Good stuff indeed, Ian. I came across this via today's Foreign Policy blog and have been sharing it all morning.

This is interesting, Thanks! Could this be done for other countries as well, or is the data hard to come by?

Very interesting. It would be nice to 1) zoom for more detailed look, 2) slow it down a little for closer look at time intervals, 3) have a table of raw data and decades close to map, to be able to go back and forth visually.

How about tackiling interstate migration in the U.S. next?

Ian...great job.
This is an incredible visual.

Thanks!

The most important fact this map shows is that even though we think of the 1850s as German and Irish, the 1890s and Eastern European Jewish and Italian, the 1950s as Latin American, etc., Immigration in this country has always been incredibly diverse.

For a single dataset this is really nice. To make it even more helpful, it might be interesting to consider an expansion: To where within the US did immigrants arrive and/or settle? This map gives the impression that they all 1)went straight from their country of origin 2)to Toledo and3) fell down a hole, when of course we know that none of those things are true. In general, it would be interesting to see these dots actually "stick." I know, I know, this could be a HUGE job, fraught with complications, But maybe someone's done the data already, or maybe at least there's a way to have this map simultaneously reflect a general westward expansion and growth of cities.

Another complication: the national/governmental boundaries of the map remain static through nearly two centuries of colonization and decolonization. For example, this problem could be relevant to migration from Mexico pre- 1846. Similarly, while the colors on the map are helpful, they seem to have the effect of flattening the ethic makeup of migration from each of the continents. Although as other commenters have noted, representing a multiplicity of factors is a difficult task to achieve. Perhaps try a simpler, regionally-specific task next time?

There's a lot of smart critiques to make regarding your video. I want to start by saying O my freaking goodness