From 1990 to 1998, 171,000 more residents moved out of the Washington area to other parts of the country than moved in from the rest of the country. This outward flow of domestic migration reversed in 1998 when 565 more people moved into the area, than moved out. While the Washington area did not attract domestic migrants during most of the 1990s, it more than compensated by attracting 233,000 migrants from foreign countries. The pace of international migration in the Washington area increased from an average 22,000 annually in the first half of the decade to an average of 31,000 in the later years.
