Yes indeed this is what FAM notes are talking about, but I do not think it is that simple, because of two things:
1. I've tried to calculate the population of all countries eligible in DV2014 (based on wikipedia population of each country) and this is how it looks like (population in millions):
- AFRICA 1.028124
- ASIA 0,904414
- EUROPE 0,834971
- NE 0,000319
- OC 0,034892
- SOUTH AMERICA 0,160654
which means:
- AFRICA - 34,69%
- ASIA 30,52%
- EUROPE 28,18%
- NE 0,01%
- OC 1,17%
- SOUTH AMERICA 5,42%
Please take a look at ASIA. 30,52%? More than Europe?
From this calculation I can say that this is not the way they estimate the regional quota. I think there are more factors that influence this quota.
BTW: If we look at this chart:
http://forums.immigration.com/attachments/2014-06-27_1441-png.56/ we can see why ASIA doesn't get 30,52% visas. It is because Asia gets a lot of immigrant visas from Family and Employment and this way the DV visas must be "cut down". Otherwise there would be too much Asians in USA.
DV lottery is all about diversity. The target is to have as much diverse immigrants as possible (talkin about all immigrants, not only DV immigrants). If we have a lot of people immigrating on Family basis from one region, then we have to cut down DV visas for those people. So this is a second proof why we can not just give DV visas in proportion to populaion of each region.
2. Please take a look at "Sloner's video":
(BTW: Simon: can you link it to: "useful links - gathered in one place), go to 16:40. This gentelman clearly says that regional quota depends on two main factors:
- number of total entries in DV from that region
- number of all immigration visas issued in the last 5 years for that region
I think that the number of total entries can be correlated with the number of population, so it is not exactly "incompatible" with FAM notes.
That is why I would like to know the number of entrants from each country (or each region) to do more stats. Doeas anybody have this data?