The Census Bureau has released a report on same-sex couples in the United States, which included a list of the metro areas and the states with the most same-sex couples.
The report uses data from the 2020 American Community Survey, which asks respondents to list the people who live in their household and state their relationships to them. The survey found just 980,266 same-sex couples – married or unmarried – living together in the U.S., about 1.5% of the total number of couples.
Related: Why adding a citizenship question to the census will harm LGBT rights
Using data about where participants live, the Census Bureau was able to find the metro areas with the highest concentration of same-sex couples.
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- San Francisco-Oakland, CA
- Portland-Vancouver, OR-WA
- Seattle-Tacoma, WA
- Orlando, FL
- Austin, TX
- Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, FL
- Boston, MA
- Denver, CO
- Phoenix, AZ
- Baltimore, MD
It’s surprising that a few metro areas with large LGBTQ populations aren’t on the list – like New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago – but those sprawling metro areas are huge and that dilutes the concentration of same-sex couples, who are more likely to be found in city centers.
Moreover, this list is just about same-sex couples, not about LGBTQ people generally. LGBTQ people who were single or who were in relationships with someone of the opposite sex weren’t counted.
The Census Bureau also found 11 states that had more same-sex couples than average. With a few exceptions, they’re blue states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington state. Washington D.C. was included as a state and also made the list.
About 47% of the same-sex couples were male and 53% were female.
Same-sex couples were much more likely to be unmarried, too: 58% of cohabiting same-sex couples were married, whereas 88% of opposite-sex couples who live together were married.
Married opposite-sex couples were about twice as likely to have children under 18 than married same-sex couples.
