Also known as acculturation, or integration, this is the integration of an immigrant, outsider, or subordinate group into the dominant, host community.

The concept of assimilation implies that the minority group eventually take on the values of the host, or charter group; Akinwumi (2006) Geografiska B 88, 2 asserts that the USA requires immigrants to put aside previous national identities and heritages; ‘for immigrants to the United States, “correct” consumption became a symbol of assimilation’ (Domosh (2004) TIBG 29, 4). ‘In today’s debates about immigrant assimilation, the degree to which immigrants remain spatially concentrated is treated as a measure of their assimilation, or willingness to assimilate’ (Ellis (2006) Tijdschrift 97, 1). Sometimes the indigenous population is required to assimilate with a non-indigenous group; Lester (2006) Geogr. Res. 44, 3 argues that Australian aborigines were to retain their lands as sites upon which missionaries could prepare them for assimilation as black, Christian Britons.

Wei Li (2006) challenges traditional notions of the urban-to-suburban transition in assimilation, revealing emerging ethnic spatial patterns and friction within the host community. R. Smith (2005) argues for transnationalism as a crucial component of assimilation; ‘assimilation and pluralism are not mutually exclusive’ (Burnley (2005) Geogr. Res. 43, 4).