Guyana Tops List of Countries With Biggest Diasporas

People have always moved from place to place, leaving their home countries for love, money, to survive or to experience something different.

And now, they’re moving more than ever, according to the United Nations (UN). It says that by 2020 there were more than 280 million people across the world living outside the country in which they were born.

And in 2022 the website Statista, along with Forbes, looked at UN data from 2020 to find the world’s biggest diasporas.

These are the countries that have seen the largest percentage of their native-born population leave for a new place.

The South American nation of Guyana is actually top of the list, with around 36% of the native-born population living somewhere else.

Guyana, which was ruled by Britain until 1966, is not at war but it has experienced years of instability and corruption that have encouraged people to leave.

Bosnia-Herzegovina is second on the list, with an estimated 34% living abroad. Although war in Bosnia ended more than 25 years ago, it is still a divided country and one in which many young people do not see a future.

And young people in Albania — which is third on the list — have similar feelings.

Syria is fourth — years of civil war have seen millions leave, often with only the bags on their backs.

But while this list looks at the percentage of the population that has left, other UN data shows that India is the country with the highest number of native-born people living abroad — an estimated 18 million.