The table illustrates the number of people from five European countries who were living in each other’s nations in 2011.
Overall, Germany and the UK hosted the largest numbers of foreign residents from the other four countries, while Poland accommodated by far the fewest. Italians and Poles were the most likely to live abroad, particularly in the UK and Germany.
Looking first at the UK, it was home to significant numbers of Italians (550,000) and Germans (297,000), as well as 119,000 Spaniards and 71,000 Poles, giving a total of just over one million foreign residents. Similarly, Germany hosted nearly 1.2 million people from the other nations, with Italians again forming the largest group at 556,000, followed by Poles at 426,000.
In contrast, far fewer people lived in Italy and Spain. Italy had a total of 196,000 foreign residents, most of whom were Poles (106,000). Spain showed a comparable pattern, hosting 861,000 people in total, including sizeable British and German populations. Poland, however, had the smallest figures overall, with only 6,000 people from the other four countries living there.