FAO · Legal Guarantees of Women's Equal Rights to Land
Women's land rights in law by country
How far does the law guarantee women equal rights to own and control land?
Of the 97 countries compared in the 2025 edition, 6 countries shared the highest reading, 6, and 17 countries shared the lowest reading, 1. In the middle country the figure was 3.
Share
Women's land rights in law · the 2025 edition
Context statistic
6 countries share the highest value, 6 — no single country is named first.
01the 2025 edition · values only
Who leads
The three countries at the highest end of 97 compared, the three at the other end, and the first on each continent.
Highest in the 2025 edition · shared
6 countries share the highest reading, 6
No single country is named first: picking one from a shared value would be a choice the data does not make.
Lowest in the 2025 edition
Where a country sits says how it compares with the others measured, and nothing about why.
02Every measured country
Women's land rights in law on a map
Each country is shaded by its value, in five groups holding the same number of countries. Hover a country for its value, or select it to open its profile. Below the map, each continent’s middle country.
Darker is a higher value — the better end.
- 1–2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- No reading in the 2025 edition
- Europe
4
the middle country, of 19 measured · 49 members
Lithuania66 share 3
Highest and lowest reading in Europe.
- Africa
3
the middle country, of 32 measured · 55 members
3 share 6
6 share 1
Highest and lowest reading in Africa.
- Americas
3
the middle country, of 19 measured · 48 members
Colombia63 share 1
Highest and lowest reading in Americas.
- Asia
3
the middle country, of 27 measured · 52 members
Cambodia68 share 1
Highest and lowest reading in Asia.
- Every region
17 sub-regions, highest middle country first
- Eastern Africa
4
the middle country, of 11 measured · 19 members
2 share 6
Djibouti1Highest and lowest reading in Eastern Africa.
- South America
4
the middle country, of 9 measured · 12 members
Colombia62 share 2
Highest and lowest reading in South America.
- South-eastern Asia
4
the middle country, of 6 measured · 11 members
Cambodia6
Myanmar1Highest and lowest reading in South-eastern Asia.
- Southern Europe
4
the middle country, of 8 measured · 17 members
3 share 5
Bosnia and Herzegovina3Highest and lowest reading in Southern Europe.
- Central America
3
the middle country, of 5 measured · 8 members
2 share 5
Belize1Highest and lowest reading in Central America.
- Eastern Europe
3
the middle country, of 5 measured · 10 members
Hungary53 share 3
Highest and lowest reading in Eastern Europe.
- Western Africa
3
the middle country, of 14 measured · 16 members
Burkina Faso64 share 1
Highest and lowest reading in Western Africa.
- Caribbean
2
the middle country, of 5 measured · 24 members
Haiti42 share 1
Highest and lowest reading in Caribbean.
- Western Asia
1
the middle country, of 13 measured · 19 members
Georgia57 share 1
Highest and lowest reading in Western Asia.
- Central Asia
3 of 5 measured — too few for a middle: Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.
Kazakhstan42 share 3
Highest and lowest reading in Central Asia.
- Eastern Asia
2 of 8 measured — too few for a middle: Mongolia, South Korea.
Mongolia4
South Korea3Highest and lowest reading in Eastern Asia.
- Middle Africa
4 of 9 measured — too few for a middle: Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad.
2 share 4
Cameroon1Highest and lowest reading in Middle Africa.
- Northern Africa
1 of 6 measured — too few for a middle: Morocco.
Morocco2Highest and lowest reading in Northern Africa.
- Northern Europe
4 of 13 measured — too few for a middle: Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Sweden.
Lithuania6
Finland3Highest and lowest reading in Northern Europe.
- Southern Africa
2 of 5 measured — too few for a middle: Lesotho, Namibia.
Namibia5
Lesotho4Highest and lowest reading in Southern Africa.
- Southern Asia
3 of 9 measured — too few for a middle: Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan.
Nepal4
Pakistan2Highest and lowest reading in Southern Asia.
- Western Europe
2 of 9 measured — too few for a middle: Germany, Switzerland.
Germany4
Switzerland3Highest and lowest reading in Western Europe.
03The whole field at once
The spread
97 countries, one dot each, on one scale — further right is a higher value. Half the countries are above 3; a quarter are above 4, and a quarter below 2. The bar in each row marks that continent’s middle country.
04All 97 ever measured
Every country
In order, highest value first. No rank or position is shown: too many countries share the same value for an order to mean anything. There are only six levels, so many countries share each one and a place in this table says little on its own. It measures the law as written, not whether women hold land in practice — for that, see women's share of agricultural landowners.
Showing 25 of 97 countries
Values for the 2025 edition.
05In this edition
Women's land rights in law in records
The extremes of the statistic. A record reached by more than one country names none of them.
Highest reading
Reached 6 times by 6 countries — shared, so no holder is named
6
Level of legal guarantees of women's equal rights to land ownership and control, 1 (lowest) to 6 (highest)
Lowest reading
Reached 17 times by 17 countries — shared, so no holder is named
1
Level of legal guarantees of women's equal rights to land ownership and control, 1 (lowest) to 6 (highest)
06The measure
About women's land rights in law
This measures how far a country's laws — its constitution and its civil, land and family law — guarantee women the same rights as men to own and control land. FAO assesses each legal framework against six tests and reports a level from 1, the weakest guarantees, to 6, the strongest; it is SDG indicator 5.a.2.
What the number is: Level of legal guarantees of women's equal rights to land ownership and control, 1 (lowest) to 6 (highest).
07Where it fits
Connections
Its part in the Country Index, the statistics whose values line up most closely with it across countries, and others on the same subject.
In the Country Index
Context, with no vote
This statistic is published in full under Gender & Equality and Food & Agriculture, but does not help decide any Country Index standing.
Gender & EqualityFood & AgricultureWhich statistics vote, and why
Moves with
Where women's land rights in law is higher, these tend to be higher too.
- Women, Business and the LawKeyWorld Bank Group · 96 countries in commonρ 0.53
Moves against
Where women's land rights in law is higher, these tend to be lower.
- Social Institutions and Gender IndexKeyOECD · 82 countries in commonρ −0.46
Rank correlation (ρ, from −1 to 1) across countries, on each statistic’s newest edition, out of 261 statistics sharing at least 80 countries with this one. Two statistics that move together do not cause each other.
08Keep reading
Explore further
The subject
The data, edition by edition
The countries at either end
09Questions
Women's land rights in law: questions and answers
Which country has the highest women's land rights in law?
6 countries share the highest reading, 6, among the 97 compared in the 2025 edition, so no single country is named.
Which country has the lowest women's land rights in law?
17 countries share the lowest reading, 1, among the 97 compared in the 2025 edition, so no single country is named.
How many countries does the Legal Guarantees of Women's Equal Rights to Land cover?
97 in the 2025 edition.
What is the world average women's land rights in law?
This site does not calculate a world average, which would depend on how countries are weighted. In the middle country of the 97 compared in the 2025 edition, the figure was 3.
Is this Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)’s own ranking?
No ranking is shown. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) publishes values only, and too many countries share the same value for an ordering to mean anything, so none is derived.
How often is the Legal Guarantees of Women's Equal Rights to Land published?
This site holds one edition, describing 2025.
Where does the data come from, and can I download it?
From Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), under CC BY 4.0. FAOSTAT's SDG Indicators domain, read from FAO's own bulk download, latest assessment per country. Regional averages in the same file are left out. Every edition is on this site’s Datasets pages as a full table, and downloads as a CSV file with every value unrounded.
10Method
Sources, method and citation
Source
Legal Guarantees of Women's Equal Rights to Land — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
FAOSTAT's SDG Indicators domain, read from FAO's own bulk download, latest assessment per country. Regional averages in the same file are left out.
Newest edition
Report year 2025Data year not recorded
Cite the source as: FAO. 2026. FAOSTAT: SDG Indicators. Accessed on 29 September 2026. https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/SDGB Licence: CC-BY-4.0.
Licence: CC BY 4.0, checked 2026-09-29.
How this page reads the numbers
- No rank or position is shown: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) publishes values only, and too many countries share the same value for an ordering to mean anything.
- Which end is better follows the publisher’s own reading of the measure.
- A country is named at an end only when it holds that value alone. Where several share it, the page says how many and names none first.
- The file gives each country’s most recent reading, so the rows are from different years. Readings from before 2015 are listed but left out of every comparison on this page.
- Values are stored exactly as published and trimmed only for display. “The middle country” is the median of the countries measured, not a world average.
The file itself, column by column — where it came from, what each column holds, and every edition as a CSV — is on its dataset page.
Cite this page
Nations Inquiry (2026). Women's land rights in law by country: Legal Guarantees of Women's Equal Rights to Land, data from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). https://nationsinquiry.com/statistics/women-land-rights-law