Foreigners in the Zgorzelec-Görlitz border urban complex
Foreigners in the Zgorzelec-Görlitz border urban complex

Summary/Abstract: The article seeks to characterise changes in the number and structure of foreigners in the split border towns of zgorzelec and Görlitz by the criterion of country of origin in the years 1993–2014 on the basis of statistical data obtained from the town offces, although for zgorzelec the analysis only concerns the year 2014 because of the lack of data. The towns differ in the number and structure of foreigners, which is primarily due to changes in the permeability of the state borders and integration processes occurring in europe, as well as the ever more intensive migration movement. Görlitz has a much higher proportion of foreigners in its population (5.4%) than zgorzelec (0.5%), and they come here from more countries (in Görlitz foreigners come from 55 states, and in zgorzelec from 20 states). The group predominating among foreigners is that of Poles (69.0% of the total). It seems that the present inflow of migrants from the Near east and Northern africa will diversify the structure of foreigners by country of origin even more, and will change the proportions between the native German population and the number of foreigners living in the town.

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