Ranked: The Best Metro Systems Across European Capital Cities

Mapped: Adults Living in Their Birth State

Where people live as adults can reveal a lot about a state’s population dynamics.

Some states have large shares of locally born residents, while others have much lower shares, often reflecting stronger in-migration from elsewhere in the country or abroad.

Overall, the figure for each state reflects two forces: how many current residents were born locally and how many newcomers the state has attracted.

This visualization maps the share of adults in each U.S. state who lived in the state where they were born in 2024, the latest data available as of August 2026. The data for this visualization comes from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates.

Louisiana Has America’s Highest Share of Locally Born Adults

Despite net negative domestic migration from the state, Louisiana ranks first among all states, with 73.9% of its current adult residents born there as of 2024.

Michigan and Ohio follow closely, at 72% and 71%, respectively. These are the only three states where at least seven in 10 adults were born in the same state where they live today.

The table below ranks all 50 states and the District of Columbia by the share of adults living in the state where they were born:

Many of the highest-ranking states are in the Midwest and South. Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Iowa rank near the top, as do Louisiana, Mississippi, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Alabama.

Pennsylvania also ranks highly, with 66% of adult residents born in the state.

Western states generally rank much lower.

One of the leading reasons adults remain in their home communities is family: among those who never left, 35% cited staying near family as a main reason.

Half of States Are Below the 50% Mark

Across the U.S., nearly one in two adults lived in their birth state in 2024, amounting to 133.7 million American adults.

Beginning with Texas at 49.7%, 25 states and D.C. had shares below 50%.

The remaining 25 states were at or above that threshold, meaning the country is almost evenly split between states where a majority of adults were born locally and those where a majority were born elsewhere.

Reasons for moving to another state often include economic factors such as better job opportunities and more affordable living arrangements, along with lifestyle and social factors.

Nevada and Florida Stand Out for In-Migration

Nevada had the lowest share in the country, with just 17% of its adult residents born in-state.

Its unusually low share reflects Nevada’s long history of rapid population growth. Between 1970 and 2025, its population increased by 572%, the largest gain of any state over that period.

However, a low share does not measure current in-migration by itself. It reflects the cumulative composition of a state’s adult population, including decades of migration and population growth.

Florida also ranked near the bottom, at 25.8%. Despite having 18.9 million adult residents, only 4.9 million were born in Florida.

Other low-ranking states include Arizona at 29.5%, Colorado at 31.9%, and Alaska at 32.6%. These states have been shaped by factors including retirement migration, job-driven moves, and more recent periods of large-scale population growth compared with many states in the Midwest and South.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you enjoyed this post, check out Mapped: The Population of U.S. States Compared with Countries on Voronoi.

Ranked: The Best and Worst Countries for Women

The Women, Peace and Security Index from the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security ranks 181 countries based on 13 indicators spanning women’s inclusion, justice, and security. Scores range from zero (worst) to one (best).

The 2025/26 edition finds that global progress in women’s status is stagnating. This visualization shows the 35 countries at each end of the index, highlighting the geographic divide between many of the world’s highest and lowest performers.

The Best Countries for Women

The table below shows the 35 highest scores in the index.

Europe dominates the upper end of the index, accounting for 25 of the 35 highest-scoring countries shown. New Zealand and Australia are the highest-ranked countries outside Europe, with both scoring 0.90.

Nordic countries occupy all five of the top positions. Despite their strong overall performance, researchers have also examined a “Nordic paradox” in which high levels of gender equality coexist with comparatively high reported rates of intimate-partner violence.

Canada scores 0.89, while the United States ranks 31st overall at 0.84. These rankings offer another lens on the broader geographic differences in women’s well-being around the world.

The Worst Countries for Women

At the other end of the index, the following table shows the 35 lowest scores reported by the Georgetown Institute.

Conflict-affected countries are heavily represented near the bottom of the index, including Afghanistan, Yemen, the Central African Republic, Syria, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Security is an important part of the index, which measures factors including proximity to armed conflict and political violence targeting women. Afghanistan illustrates how restrictions can extend well beyond physical security: recent reporting found that just 7% of Afghan women were employed, compared with 84% of men.

Africa accounts for roughly two-thirds of the 35 lowest-scoring countries shown. However, the index stresses that national outcomes are multidimensional, combining employment and education with legal discrimination, violence, and other measures. Women’s outcomes can also diverge significantly within countries and over time, with changing demographic trends.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

To explore another dimension of women’s economic participation around the world, see Which Countries Have the Most Women in the Workforce? on the Voronoi app.