How is hierher different from hier?

In lesson 10.1 Bank Account

The sentence “Nein, ich bin gerade erst hierher gezogen.  No, I just moved here.” is introduced.  I don't recall hierher ever being introduced or used in any previous lesson so I was expecting some kind of explanation as to why hierher was used rather than the familiar heir.  Is there any reason why one is preferable to the other in this sentence or is it just an effort to expand our vocabulary?

I'll have a go with this.

Hier just means here, but hierher means that you have come from somewhere else to here.

So in your sentence, the speaker has moved to “here” from somewhere else.

There are two little words hin and her, from the point of view of the speaker hin implies looking away to a goal and her implies coming from an origin to the speaker.

They can be attached to other words so he have, wohin and woher.

Woher kommst du? Where do you come from?

Wohin gehst du? Where are you going?

I hope I got that right, it's a bit tricky, perhaps the tutor will comment?

Hallo DeanC7 und sfpugh,
 

Thank you for your great explanation, sfpugh! Hier describes a location as in “Ich bin hier." - “I am here.” (the speakers current location) whereas hierher implies both location and direction/movement. It describes movement from somewhere to here (the current location).

So in this particular case, the speaker has moved from her previous location to her new one (here). 

Grüße,

Julia