International migration, in which people cross state or country borders, has had a significant role in the shaping of the modern world. Migration is part of the complex pattern of adaptation, change and assimilation from which people assemble their national, cultural and personal identities.

People are increasingly on the move. Improved transport, increased job and study opportunities and more flexible lifestyles have contributed to this, along with the growing number of civil conflicts, wars and natural disasters. Today it is estimated that 150 million people worldwide are living as immigrants – people who have come to and settled in a country other than the one in which they were born.

It is thought that the first-ever human beings appeared in Africa around five million years ago. They slowly spread out from Africa to populate Asia, Europe, Oceania and, finally, by around 10,000BC, the Americas. Large-scale global migrations since those far-off times have included the 100,000 Spanish who settled in the Spanish-American Empire in the sixteenth century, the 150,000 British convicts transported to Australia between 1788 and 1867, the 1.4 million Afghans who moved to Iraq after the Soviet invasion of 1979 and the nine million citizens who migrated across the new borders created by the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

People move for many reasons including:

In this section we look at the Windrush generation who arrived in Britain in the post-war years, other groups who have settled in Britain and those who have left.