When people resettle, they move to a new place to live permanently after being forced to leave their previous home. The word describes both the physical move and the challenging process of building a new life from scratch.

Refugees who flee war or persecution often resettle in a different country where they're safe. They must learn new customs, possibly a new language, find work, enroll their children in unfamiliar schools, and figure out how to navigate everything from grocery stores to public transportation. Organizations help families resettle by finding them housing, teaching them local languages, and connecting them with jobs.

Governments also resettle people for large construction projects. When China built the Three Gorges Dam, over a million people had to be resettled because their villages would be underwater once the dam was complete. These families received new homes in different areas, but resettling meant leaving behind ancestral lands and communities they'd known for generations.