The data highlights just how much perception can differ from reality.
The US presidential election is just days away, and immigration is a key issue for many voters — but data shows that almost everyone overestimates how many immigrants actually live in their country.
The chart below, made by Our World In Data and based on Ipsos's Perils of Perception Report, shows the difference between people's perceptions of their country's foreign-born population and the actual numbers.
In the US, respondents believe 33 percent of the population are immigrants when the actual share is more than half of that (15 percent).
People in Poland and Japan think immigrants make up 15 and 10 percent of the population, respectively — but in both countries, the true percentage is only around two percent.
Of the countries analyzed, Argentina was the furthest off overall; there was a whopping 23 percentage point difference between the share of the population respondents believed to be foreign-born and the reality.
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