Some 71 percent of Iowa residents were born in this state, a higher percentage than in all but six states, according to an interactive graphic at the New York Times website based on data from 2012 (hat tip to the Des Moines Register’s Daniel Finney). The states with an even greater proportion of residents born there, as of 2012, were Louisiana (79 percent), Michigan (77 percent), Ohio (75 percent), Pennsylvania (74 percent), and Wisconsin and Mississippi (72 percent each). The states with the lowest percentage of residents born there were Nevada (25 percent), Florida (36 percent), Arizona (38 percent), and Alaska and New Hampshire (42 percent each).

On this page you can view how migration to and from Iowa has changed over the past century. In 1900, following decades of extensive immigration from Europe, only 59 percent of Iowans were born in this state. That figure gradually rose each decade, peaking at 80 percent of Iowa residents being born here as of 1960 and 1970. By the same token, 14 percent of Iowans were born outside the U.S. as of 1900. That figure dropped steadily to a low point of 2 percent from 1960 through 1990. As of 2012, 5 percent of Iowa residents were foreign-born.

Among Iowans who have moved here from other states, those born in other Midwestern states outnumber those from the northeast, south, and west combined.

The percentage of native-born Iowans who have stayed here has fluctuated very little over the last century. At any given point measured, between 58 percent and 64 percent of all Americans born in Iowa were living in Iowa. Patterns of out-migration have changed somewhat. For many decades, a significant number of Iowa-born Americans have settled in Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, and other Midwestern states. Migration to California peaked in the middle part of the last century. As of 2012, there were more Iowa-born people living in southern states and more in other states in the west than in California. The New York Times comments,

MIGRATION INTO IOWA

Iowa has been the picture of stability. But the share of its population born in the state is at its lowest point since 1920. […]

DIASPORA OUT OF IOWA

Iowa is unusual in that the overall number of people born in the state is itself declining, leaving fewer people to possibly migrate. The flow out of the state hasn’t grown much, though people leaving head south.