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Number of countries where same-sex marriage is legal

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LGBT+ RightsHuman RightsMarriages & Divorces

What you should know about this indicator

The data is up to date as of May 2023.

Number of countries where same-sex marriage is legal
Same-sex marriage is marriage and marriage recognition between two people of the same biological sex or gender identity.
Source
Pew Research Center (2023) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
June 3, 2024
Next expected update
June 2025
Date range
2000–2023

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Since the first same-sex marriages took place in the Netherlands in 2001, more than 30 other jurisdictions have enacted laws allowing gays and lesbians to marry, mostly in Europe and the Americas. This interactive table allows you to sort those places by name, region and the year legal same-sex marriage took effect. It also includes some key facts about the process in each jurisdiction.

Retrieved on
June 3, 2024
Retrieved from
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/gay-marriage-around-the-world/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Pew Research Center (2023). https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/gay-marriage-around-the-world/
“Same-Sex Marriage Around the World.” Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (9 June 2023) https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/gay-marriage-around-the-world/.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline
Notes on our processing step for this indicator

We converted the original data with the years of the legalization of same-sex marriage into a expanded dataset with the legal status of same-sex marriage for each country and year.

We estimated regional aggregations of these status by using Our World in Data definitions of regions and our consolidated population data.

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Number of countries where same-sex marriage is legal”, part of the following publication: Bastian Herre and Pablo Arriagada (2023) - “LGBT+ Rights”. Data adapted from Pew Research Center. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/same-sex-marriage-country-count [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Pew Research Center (2023) – with major processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

Pew Research Center (2023) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Number of countries where same-sex marriage is legal” [dataset]. Pew Research Center, “Same-sex marriage around the world - Pew Research Center” [original data]. Retrieved November 21, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/same-sex-marriage-country-count