Abstract
Internal migration plays an increasingly important role in the spatial redistribution of population and has become a key component of this process. To fully understand these dynamics, it is essential to analyse migration trends across various spatial levels, from regional to local, while also examining the main directions and intensity of migration flows. This study identifies and evaluates the dominant intraregional (within functional urban regions – FURs) and interregional (between FURs) migration flows in Slovakia between 1996 and 2022, based on anonymised microdata from the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. For cartographic interpretation, the Line Density tool was employed, enabling effective visualisation of the spatial aspects of migration processes.
Political, economic, and social transformations following the Velvet Revolution in 1989 catalysed significant shifts in internal migration patterns in Slovakia, reflecting broader trends of change observed across other post-socialist countries in East-Central Europe (Pregi and Novotný, 2025). The post-socialist transition gradually reversed the previous rural-to-urban migration trend, giving rise to suburban migration flows. Since the mid-1990s, suburban areas have experienced rapid population growth due to migration (cf. Pregi and Novotný, 2025). Dynamic changes were also observed in interregional migration. Population concentration intensified in the regions of cities and large towns (Novotný et al., 2023; Pregi and Novotný, 2019), with the most significant interregional migration flows directed toward the capital city region (Novotný et al., 2023). Findings on changes in the volume and structure of migration highlight the need to further examine the specific spatial patterns of migration. The aim of this study is to provide a concise cartographic visualisation of migration flows and to interpret the resulting intra- and interregional migration patterns in Slovakia since the mid-1990s. The analysis is based on anonymised microdata on migrations between municipalities of the Slovak Republic from 1996 to 2022, provided by the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic (SOSR, 2023). For analytical purposes, this period is divided into three sub-periods: 1996–2007, 2008–2019, and 2020–2022, allowing the study to capture key developmental trends across different transformational and post-transformational phases, including the deep economic recession in the early post-socialist transition, rapid economic growth in the early 21st century, as well as the periods of the global economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. For cartographic interpretation, the Line Density tool (ArcMap 10.6.1) was employed, effectively visualising extremely large and complex origin-destination datasets (2,111,185 migration flows and 183,080 connections), providing valuable insights into spatial interactions (Figure 1). Annual average internal migration flows between municipalities of the Slovak Republic in three periods (1996–2007, 2008–2019, and 2020–2022), visualised using the Line Density tool (output cell size: 100 m; search radius: 200 m), using the functional regionalization FUR by (Bezák, 2014).
In the spatial distribution of migration flows, both several regularities and differences can be identified across all periods. Intraregional flows dominated throughout the whole period, while in the latter periods the share of interregional migrations increased, revealing the growth of east–west migration with the Bratislava region as a dominant destination. Besides Bratislava, a strong position in the migration network is held by the second-city region (Košice), followed by other major towns. During 2020, when the strictest COVID-19 restrictions were in place in Slovakia, the number of migration flows and connections between municipalities declined sharply. In the following 2 years, migration activity recovered, with more than 100,000 flows and nearly 31,500 connections recorded in 2022. This period also confirmed the dominant position of the western regions within Slovakia’s internal migration system. Overall, the findings point to ongoing processes of population decentralisation and metropolisation in Slovakia.
Footnotes
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Funded by the EU NextGenerationEU through the Recovery and Resilience Plan for Slovakia under the project No. 09I03-03-V05-00008.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Data Availability Statement
The data used in this study are available on request from the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic.
