This map shows the best and worst countries in Europe to be gay

The UK has slipped further down the rankings of the most LGBTI-friendly nations in Europe, according to new ratings released by a leading rights organisation.

After four years in a row at the top of the ILGA's Rainbow Europe list, the UK has fallen to third, a year after moving down to second.

Elsewhere, as the above map from Statista shows, countries in eastern Europe perform by far the worst - with post-Soviet states Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia all appearing at the bottom.

Among the top nations other than the UK are Malta, Belgium, Denmark and Spain. This chart shows all countries in Europe, ranked in order:

The annual review ranks 49 European countries on a scale between 0 per cent (gross violations of human rights, discrimination) and 100 per cent (respect of human rights, full equality).

We rank the countries on the basis of laws and policies that have a direct impact on the LGBTI people’s human rights in under 6 categories: equality and non-discrimination; family; bias motivated speech/violence; legal gender recognition; freedom of assembly, association and expression; and asylum.

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