The principle is simple: no figure on this site is estimated, corrected or “adjusted” by us. The data is downloaded from the official sources as it is, aggregated where needed (for example from months to years) and charted. Everything else — definitions, caveats, limits — is documented below, series by series.
The sources, one by one
Irregular crossings — Frontex
The Detections of illegal border crossings series from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency: monthly detections of irregular crossings at the EU's external borders, by migratory route, since January 2009. Three essential caveats. It counts detections, not people: someone detected at two different borders is counted twice. It counts only those detected: undetected entries, by definition, do not appear. And recent months are provisional: Frontex revises them in later releases.
Asylum applications — Eurostat
Table migr_asyappctzm: applicants for international protection by month, country and citizenship, EU-27 aggregate, since January 2014. We always distinguish first-time applications (someone applying for the first time in that country — the closest measure of newly arrived people) from all applications, which include repeats after a rejection. Applications lag arrivals by months, because people apply after entering; and those fleeing Ukraine under temporary protection do not appear here.
Regular migration — Eurostat
Tables migr_imm1ctz and migr_emi1ctz: annual immigration and emigration by country and citizenship, since 2008. The UN definition applies: it counts those moving their usual residence for at least 12 months. Two consequences to keep in mind. The figure includes EU citizens moving between member states and returning nationals: it is not a count of non-EU arrivals only. And emigration is undercounted, because it relies on de-registrations and people who leave do not always deregister (for Italy, the AIRE registry is the analogue).
Citizenship acquisitions — Eurostat
Table migr_acq: grants of citizenship by country, previous citizenship and age group, since 2008. It is a lagging indicator of immigration: residence requirements (typically 4 to 10 years) mean today's acquisitions tell the story of arrivals almost a decade ago.
Borders and geography
Map geometries come from Natural Earth, a public-domain cartographic dataset. The map's lines connect the capitals of departure or transit countries to the actual EU entry point: they are a schematic representation of corridors, not individual trajectories.
How we process the data
Data is downloaded from the sources' public APIs by automated scripts, stored as static files and served as is: the whole process is reproducible and introduces no estimates. The only transformations are arithmetic aggregations (sums by year, route, country) and the net-migration calculation (immigration minus emigration). Years for which the sources have published only some months are marked with an asterisk (*) in every chart and table. Below each chart, an accessible table carries the same figures in HTML.
The atlas is refreshed with each new source release. Right now the series run through February 2026 (data downloaded on June 16, 2026).
What these numbers do not say
No statistic tells the whole story, and stretching one beyond its limits produces wrong conclusions. In particular, this atlas does not measure: how many people live in Europe as foreigners (we show flows, not stocks); the outcome of asylum applications (recognition and rejection rates); movements inside the Schengen area, which no source tracks by route; undetected irregular entries; or beneficiaries of temporary protection, who follow a separate statistical channel. Where a number needs a caveat, we write it next to the number, not at the bottom of the page.
Citing the atlas
The data belongs to the original sources (Frontex, Eurostat), which should always be credited as the origin of the figures. If you use a chart or a calculation from this site, cite “ROTTE · Migration Atlas (migrationatlas.eu), based on Frontex/Eurostat data” with a link to the page.
Errors and corrections
If you find a mistake — a figure, a definition, a translation — write to erixhens.muka1@protonmail.com: verified corrections are published with the next release. Transparency about method is worth more than apparent perfection.