Data updatesHow do the rights of LGBT+ people vary around the world?

How do the rights of LGBT+ people vary around the world?

The map shows the 38 countries that allow same-sex partners to marry, affirming their right to love and form a family.

However, the majority of countries don’t recognize same-sex marriage, or outright ban it.

This data comes from the LGBTI National Policy Dataset, compiled by researcher Kristopher Velasco at Princeton University. It tracks the adoption, scope, and enforcement of 27 LGBTI-related policies across 197 countries, with annual data starting in 1991.

We recently updated this data with the 2026 release.

Explore many other charts from the updated dataset
Choropleth world map of same-sex marriage legal status by country where countries are classified as legal, civil unions only, no legal provisions, banned, or no data. It shows legalization concentrated across much of Europe, the Americas and parts of Oceania, while many countries in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia ban it; the map notes Estonia legalized same-sex marriage in 2023 and Thailand in 2024. Data source: Velasco (2026), data for 2025. License: CC BY to Our World in Data.