We do this by comparing two Iberian metropolises: the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona (MRB) and the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA), where we identify the concentration of the Latin American immigrant population (by their country of birth), establishing typologies of concentrations created via residential mobility, and deepening our understanding of the immigrants within this group.

The data used corresponds to the Population Census of both countries for 2011, which indicates that the MRB has 4,987,402 inhabitants, of which 14.8% are immigrants and 51.1% of them are of Latin American origin; while the LMA has 2.821.826 inhabitants, with 13.9%, and 19.7% respectively. Although the weight of the population of Latin American origin on the total number of immigrants is not the same in both, and in the LMA a single group - Brazilians - represents almost 95% of all Latin Americans, we make the comparison using other criteria such as the Location Coefficient to identify zones of concentration.

Some results indicate that, in both areas studied, the highest concentrations reach low levels; these areas also have representation in the historical centers (the main gateways of immigration); and that the rest of these concentrations tend to be located in the peripheral areas, which could be shaping a socio-cultural system within the immigrant population of Southern European countries, generated through internal residential mobility and not direct migration from abroad, which we also analyze. On the other hand, it is also observed that in the LMA the areas of low concentration of the population are more representative than in the MRB.