CIVICUS · Civic Space Ratings
Civic space by country
How freely can people organise, speak and protest?
Kiribati placed first of the 198 countries compared in 2025, at 100.00, and North Korea last, at 2.17. In the middle country the figure was 50.46.
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Civic space · 2025
Key statistic · Democracy & Civil Liberties
Highest of 198Kiribati
100.00012025 · position · derived
Who leads
The three countries at the highest end of 198 compared, the three at the other end, and the first on each continent.
1Photo: Photo taken by Government of Kiribati employee in the course of their work · CC BY 3.0, greyscale
2Photo: Ximonic , Simo Räsänen · CC BY-SA 3.0, greyscale
3Photo: Andrus Uuetalu derivative work: Jjtkk · CC BY-SA 3.0 ee, greyscale
Lowest in 2025
- 198
North Korea2.17 - 197
Eritrea4.00 - 196
Turkmenistan4.42
Positions out of 198. Where a country sits says how it compares with the others measured, and nothing about why.
02Every measured country
Civic space 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.
- 2.17–24.96
- 25.17–40.00
- 40.01–60.25
- 60.28–80.48
- 81.00–100.00
- No reading in 2025
- Oceania
80.74
the middle country, of 14 measured · 21 members
Kiribati100.00
Papua New Guinea53.51Highest and lowest reading in Oceania.
- Europe
75.94
the middle country, of 44 measured · 49 members
Norway98.10
Belarus8.60Highest and lowest reading in Europe.
- Americas
70.51
the middle country, of 35 measured · 48 members
Barbados89.85
Nicaragua5.00Highest and lowest reading in Americas.
- Africa
31.66
the middle country, of 55 measured · 55 members
São Tomé and Príncipe88.20Eritrea4.00Highest and lowest reading in Africa.
- Asia
28.55
the middle country, of 50 measured · 52 members
Taiwan87.92North Korea2.17Highest and lowest reading in Asia.
- Every region
22 sub-regions, highest middle country first
- Micronesia
89.68
the middle country, of 5 measured · 7 members
Kiribati100.00
Nauru60.00Highest and lowest reading in Micronesia.
- Northern Europe
87.13
the middle country, of 10 measured · 13 members
Norway98.10
United Kingdom59.50Highest and lowest reading in Northern Europe.
- Caribbean
83.94
the middle country, of 13 measured · 24 members
Barbados89.85
Cuba13.15Highest and lowest reading in Caribbean.
- Western Europe
78.36
the middle country, of 9 measured · 9 members
Luxembourg93.68
Germany60.25Highest and lowest reading in Western Europe.
- Southern Europe
69.17
the middle country, of 15 measured · 17 members
San Marino93.81
Serbia38.15Highest and lowest reading in Southern Europe.
- Eastern Europe
63.36
the middle country, of 10 measured · 10 members
Czechia86.85Belarus8.60Highest and lowest reading in Eastern Europe.
- Southern Africa
59.79
the middle country, of 5 measured · 5 members
Namibia80.15
Eswatini15.43Highest and lowest reading in Southern Africa.
- Eastern Asia
59.33
the middle country, of 7 measured · 8 members
Taiwan87.92North Korea2.17Highest and lowest reading in Eastern Asia.
- South America
53.39
the middle country, of 12 measured · 12 members
Uruguay84.46
Venezuela14.24Highest and lowest reading in South America.
- Western Africa
43.93
the middle country, of 16 measured · 16 members
Cabo Verde87.68
Burkina Faso25.17Highest and lowest reading in Western Africa.
- Central America
40.16
the middle country, of 8 measured · 8 members
Belize78.50Nicaragua5.00Highest and lowest reading in Central America.
- South-eastern Asia
30.49
the middle country, of 11 measured · 11 members
Timor-Leste71.97
Laos5.42Highest and lowest reading in South-eastern Asia.
- Southern Asia
30.00
the middle country, of 9 measured · 9 members
Bhutan50.74
Afghanistan7.68Highest and lowest reading in Southern Asia.
- Middle Africa
28.42
the middle country, of 9 measured · 9 members
São Tomé and Príncipe88.20
Equatorial Guinea14.82Highest and lowest reading in Middle Africa.
- Eastern Africa
28.18
the middle country, of 19 measured · 19 members
Seychelles80.00Eritrea4.00Highest and lowest reading in Eastern Africa.
- Northern Africa
26.93
the middle country, of 6 measured · 6 members
Morocco41.65
Sudan9.03Highest and lowest reading in Northern Africa.
- Western Asia
20.28
the middle country, of 18 measured · 19 members
Cyprus75.03
Saudi Arabia4.69Highest and lowest reading in Western Asia.
- Central Asia
17.96
the middle country, of 5 measured · 5 members
Kyrgyzstan32.19Turkmenistan4.42Highest and lowest reading in Central Asia.
- Australia and New Zealand
2 of 2 measured — too few for a middle: Australia, New Zealand.
New Zealand92.24
Australia80.48Highest and lowest reading in Australia and New Zealand.
- Melanesia
4 of 5 measured — too few for a middle: Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu.
Solomon Islands69.00Papua New Guinea53.51Highest and lowest reading in Melanesia.
- Northern America
2 of 4 measured — too few for a middle: Canada, United States.
Canada82.00
United States56.40Highest and lowest reading in Northern America.
- Polynesia
3 of 7 measured — too few for a middle: Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu.
Tuvalu87.62
Tonga80.03Highest and lowest reading in Polynesia.
03The whole field at once
The spread
198 countries, one dot each, on one scale — further right is a higher value. Half the countries are above 50.46; a quarter are above 77.00, and a quarter below 28.02. The bar in each row marks that continent’s middle country.
04All 198 ever measured
Every country
In order, highest value first. “=” marks a position shared with another country. CIVICUS ranks nobody on this measure; the position is derived here by ordering the published values. The score is CIVICUS’s own number, not an encoding of the five categories: their API publishes a 0–100 current score, and for all 198 countries it matches the score attached to their newest rating exactly. The rating is stored beside it.
Showing 25 of 198 countries
Values for 2025.
05In this edition
Civic space in records
The extremes of the statistic. A record reached by more than one country names none of them.
Highest reading
100.00
Civic space score (0–100)
Lowest reading
2.17
Civic space score (0–100)
06The measure
About civic space
The CIVICUS Monitor scores how far people in a country may organise, speak and protest, out of 100, and sorts them into five ratings: open, narrowed, obstructed, repressed and closed. At 198 countries it is the widest measure of civic freedom available anywhere.
What the number is: Civic space score (0–100).
What it does not measure
It rates the freedoms of association, assembly and expression; elections, courts and economic rights are measured elsewhere.
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
A key statistic for Democracy & Civil Liberties
“Whether people can assemble, organise and speak in practice this year. Correlates 0.915 with V-Dem, just inside the 0.92 bar, and kept because a country can hold real elections while closing civic space between them.”
- Edition used
- 2025 (data 2025)
- Countries
- 198
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
Moves with
Where civic space is higher, these tend to be higher too.
- Voice and AccountabilityWorld Bank Group · 197 countries in commonρ 0.92
- V-Dem Electoral Democracy IndexKeyV-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg · 176 countries in commonρ 0.92
- Liberal Democracy IndexV-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg · 176 countries in commonρ 0.91
Moves against
Where civic space is higher, these tend to be lower.
- Neopatrimonial Rule IndexV-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg · 176 countries in commonρ −0.83
- PM2.5 Air Pollution ExposureAtmospheric Composition Analysis Group, Washington University in St. Louis · 195 countries in commonρ −0.71
- Refugees by Country of OriginUNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency · 191 countries in commonρ −0.69
Rank correlation (ρ, from −1 to 1) across countries, on each statistic’s newest edition, out of 385 statistics sharing at least 80 countries with this one. Two statistics that move together do not cause each other.
08Keep reading
Explore further
The data, edition by edition
The countries at either end
09Questions
Civic space: questions and answers
Which country has the highest civic space?
Kiribati, at 100.00, among the 198 countries compared in 2025.
Which country has the lowest civic space?
North Korea, at 2.17, among the 198 countries compared in 2025.
How many countries does the Civic Space Ratings cover?
198 in 2025.
What is the world average civic space?
This site does not calculate a world average, which would depend on how countries are weighted. In the middle country of the 198 compared in 2025, the figure was 50.46.
Is this CIVICUS’s own ranking?
No. CIVICUS publishes the values but ranks nobody; the position on this page is derived by Nations Inquiry by ordering the published values, and equal values share a position.
How often is the Civic Space Ratings published?
This site holds one edition, describing 2025.
Where does the data come from, and can I download it?
From CIVICUS, under CC BY-SA 4.0. From the CIVICUS Monitor API. Each country carries a rating history, but it holds several entries per year minutes apart — working revisions rather than annual editions — so only the current rating is imported. Greenland has a rating but no score and is not included. 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
Civic Space Ratings — CIVICUS
From the CIVICUS Monitor API. Each country carries a rating history, but it holds several entries per year minutes apart — working revisions rather than annual editions — so only the current rating is imported. Greenland has a rating but no score and is not included.
Newest edition
Report year 2025Data year 2025
Cite the source as: CIVICUS. CIVICUS Monitor. Johannesburg: CIVICUS.
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0, checked 2026-09-07.
How this page reads the numbers
- CIVICUS ranks nobody on this measure. The position is derived by Nations Inquiry by ordering the published values; equal values share a position.
- 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.
- 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.
Photographs
The countries at the top of this statistic, from their profiles: Wikimedia Commons, shown in greyscale, each used under the licence named.
Cite this page
Nations Inquiry (2026). Civic space by country: Civic Space Ratings, data from CIVICUS. https://nationsinquiry.com/statistics/civic-space