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Which country has the highest number of diplomatic missions (embassies, high commissions, consulates general or consulates, but not honorary consuls) in a single other country? The mission must be to that country, so, for example, the German mission to the United Nations in the US wouldn't be considered.

For example, the UK has 9 diplomatic missions in the US: Embassy in Washington DC, and Consulates General in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, LA, Miami, NY and SF. This is the highest I have found so far. What other country pairs have very high numbers?

whoisit
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1 Answers1

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Based on the 2021 data from the Lowy Institute, the answer appears to be Mexico's fifty-two diplomatic missions within the USA, consisting of:

  • One embassy in Washington, D.C.;
  • Twenty-two consulates-general in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, El Paso, Houston, Laredo, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Nogales, Phoenix, Raleigh, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, San Juan, as well as Washington, D.C.;
  • Twenty-nine consulates in Albuquerque, Boise, Brownsville, Calexico, Del Rio, Detroit, Douglas, Eagle Pass, Fresno, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Little Rock, McAllen, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Omaha, Orlando, Oxnard, Philadelphia, Portland, Presidio, Saint Paul, Salt Lake City, San Bernardino, Santa Ana, Seattle, Tucson and Yuma.

The runners-up are Canada-USA (15), Japan-USA (14, plus one in Guam), Chile-Argentina (14), and Turkey-Germany (14).

CDJB
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    oh wow, that's a lot. – whoisit Feb 06 '23 at 10:41
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    @whoisit While they are official diplomatic missions, their primary purpose will be providing consular services to Mexican citizens living in the United States, of which there are also a lot. – xyldke Feb 06 '23 at 12:20
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    I didn't have the list ready, but this was the first idea that came to mind. The answer "should" be a pair A, B where there are a lot of citizens of A resident in country B. I found a report from the UN (2015) saying there are 12 million migrants from Mexico living in the US; the next highest pairs (India -> UAE, Russia -> Ukraine, Ukraine -> Russia, Bangladesh -> India, Kazakhstan -> Russia) are at 3 million. (https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/publications/migrationreport/docs/MigrationReport2015_Highlights.pdf) – Michael Lugo Feb 06 '23 at 15:07
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    @MichaelLugo the geographic extent of the receiving nation is also a factor. It's hard to imagine any country having 52 missions in the UAE no matter how many of its citizens live there. – phoog Feb 06 '23 at 16:01
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    Looks like they used to have even more; for example, in Anchorage, Alaska. – gerrit Feb 06 '23 at 16:19
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    @gerrit that article says at the end that "The Consulate of Mexico has 50 offices nationwide and is largest consulate presence in the world" - which supports the idea that Mexico-USA is the winner (or at least was as of 2015) – Michael Lugo Feb 06 '23 at 16:21
  • Doesn't it implies that US has also same number of diplomatic missions ? I mean, if you have diplomatic mission for me then It implies that I have one for you, then numbers are equal. – An_Elephant Feb 07 '23 at 11:52
  • The Lowy data seems incomplete - for example Sweden has an embassy and nine consulates in Norway (https://www.swedenabroad.se/en/embassies/norway-oslo/contact/) and they don't mention the consulates. – Michael Lugo Feb 07 '23 at 16:13
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    @MichaelLugo I believe those are all honorary consulates - despite your website referring to some of the staff as consuls, all other sources I can see refer to the staff as honorary consuls, and they appear to be Norwegian citizens. – CDJB Feb 07 '23 at 16:26
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    you may be right - Sweden-Norway seemed like a promising pair as countries with a long border and a lot of movement between them. – Michael Lugo Feb 07 '23 at 17:09
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    @An_Elephant No, you don't have to have a 1-1 match--it's not like the US has to go put a building in Mexico every time Mexico puts one in the US. Probably you both have some buildings, but it doesn't have to be an exact match. – user3067860 Feb 07 '23 at 19:32
  • @user3067860 ok thanks. – An_Elephant Feb 08 '23 at 03:24
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    @MichaelLugo But low need of consular services due to the Nordic Council: no visa or passport required to travel or move to the other country. In general citizens in one nordic country can easily become citizen in another nordic country by virtue of living there for n years and so forth. So in short: the swedes I know living in Norway doesn't use a lot of consular services. There's simply no need. – vidarlo Feb 08 '23 at 08:53
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    @phoog exactly that. Yeah 50 from mexico in the US sounds like a lot, but that may still be a 10-hour-drive to the nearest one for a mexican citizen. Meanwhile the 14 turkish ones in Germany mean that regardless of where you are in Germany, the next turkish consulate is within a 2 hour drive. Maybe 3 if you're stuck on dirt roads in the absolute nowhere. There simply isn't enough Germany to sensefully place more consulates. – Hobbamok Feb 08 '23 at 09:53
  • @MichaelLugo yes, a long border and in a lot of places it's easier to just go back to your home country for bureaucracy than to go to the next big city which could provide consular services. – Hobbamok Feb 08 '23 at 09:54
  • @vidarlo on the contrary, a Swede living in Norway who wants to travel to, e.g., Canada needs a passport and therefore needs consular services. The ease with which Swedes can establish themselves in Norway should increase the demand for consular services, not decrease it. – phoog Aug 29 '23 at 19:29
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    @phoog Once every ten years. That's not a lot. And they can swap citizenship after a few years without a lot of red tape. – vidarlo Aug 29 '23 at 22:12
  • If you compared USA and UK, with ten times higher population per square mile in the UK, you would expect 10 small places in the USA for 1 big place in the UK so people travel the same distance. – gnasher729 Aug 30 '23 at 19:54
  • @phoog given the shape, geographical relation and pop densities of the two countries, it probably will be easy enough to hop over back home for consulate-relevant stuff anyway. – Chieron Aug 31 '23 at 08:44