Monitor: Leiden Has Once Again Become More International
Leiden has once again become more international in the past year. In 2023, 34.5 percent of Leiden’s residents have a migration background and 13.1 percent have a foreign nationality. In 2022, these percentages were still 32.9 and 11.6. This is evident from the 'Internationalization Monitor 2023' for the municipality of Leiden.
Expressed in absolute numbers, 43,837 residents of Leiden have a migration background. In addition, 16,643 have a foreign nationality. The migration background is in most cases Moroccan. The most common foreign nationality is Italian.
The monitor distinguishes between foreign knowledge workers and students, labour migrants and refugees. Knowledge workers include, for example, employees at the Bio Science Park. Refugees include Ukrainians who have been sheltered in Leiden since the Russian invasion of their country in February 2022.
Leiden University is also becoming increasingly international. Almost twenty percent of the students are international. For comparison: in 2006 this was still 3.8 percent.
CBS
The monitor is based on data from the Municipality of Leiden, the Central Bureau of Statistics, the Leiden International Centre and Nuffic, the organization for internationalization in education.
This article was originally written in Dutch by Louis Smit for Sleutelstad.