Andean migrants in Spain. Spatial coordinates and mapping of pathways

The growth in migrant flows from Latin America to Spain over the last decade has altered the immigrant landscape in the Iberian Peninsula, in terms at once of the origin of migrant populations and their demographic or social characteristics, and of their patterns of spatial distribution. That is the issue that the present article proposes to address, based on an analysis of the available information on the spatial distribution of Andean immigrants and the latest statistical data. There are two questions underpinning this survey: what is the relationship between the location of Andean immigrants and that of other, longer-standing groups about whose geography we know more? Can we map the spatial patterns that form due to the existence of migratory pathways, which we know are important for migrating societies? On a Spanish national scale, the authors have sketched out a map of areas where Andean immigrants have settled, examining whether or not these receiving areas coincide with earlier, more traditional waves of immigration and attempting to differentiate their regional distribution with reference to the immigrants' areas of origin. On a regional scale we examine patterns of rural / periurban / urban settlement of immigrants in relation to the dimensions of the labour market and existing immigrant pathways.