Lake Burley Griffin continues to divide Canberrans, with new figures confirming people are much more likely to stay on the same side when moving house.
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The Australian Bureau of Statistics has included experimental regional figures for the first time in its annual migration data, published yesterday.
They find that 16,724 Canberrans moved town centres in 2010-11 - but only 6592 were able to bring themselves to cross the lake. The other 10,132 remained safely on the side where they began, be it north or south.
The trend held true for every town centre with the exception of South Canberra, where the allure of North Canberra in particular proved too strong and helped the lake crossers (1033) outnumber those staying south (825).
The data shows that people leaving North Canberra or Gungahlin were most likely to end up in Belconnen, while those in Woden and Weston Creek were most drawn to Tuggeranong.
Belconnen residents seem to return the affections of Gungahlin, as did Tuggeranong residents with Woden.
Overall, Tuggeranong lost the most inter-territory movers, with a net 1328 going to another area in Canberra. North Canberra (158), Woden (180) and Weston Creek (13) also all lost people to other town centres. Gungahlin picked up the most, at 2693, followed by Belconnen at 187 and South Canberra at 154.
About 61 per cent of those heading to Gungahlin were men (1632 to 1061 women).
Women appeared to see more in Belconnen; a net 293 moved there compared with 106 men moving away.
It was the other way around in Weston Creek, where there was a net addition of 59 women and a loss of 72 women.
When looking at individual suburbs, Franklin and Forde (with 1005 and 905 respectively) picked up the most people in inter-territory migration, while Campbell (233), Kambah (201), Calwell (183), Amaroo (165) and Chisholm (164) all lost notable numbers to other suburbs.
There were also a net 3336 people who came to the ACT from elsewhere in 2010-11.
The figures showed 7288 people came from overseas, and 5307 left to go live in another country. Immigrants had a median age of 27.4 and emigrants of 28.9. Both were slightly more likely to be men than women.
The ACT's net 1981 increase in overseas migration was more than Tasmania and the Northern Territory combined.
The territory also recorded its first gains in interstate migration since 2006-07 and just the third in the past decade, adding a net 1355 people from other states.
The figures showed that 19,427 Australians moved to the territory, and 18,072 people left for other states.
Separate figures published by the bureau previously showed a natural increase, or births less deaths, in the territory's population for 2010-11 at 3411.
Yesterday's report also found that south-eastern NSW, which surrounds the ACT, had the highest net outflow of people aged 15-24 in the country, at 1100 people.
There were 120 people who came to Canberra on a humanitarian visa.
