Taiwan recorded 2,939 gay marriages in 2019 after passing legislation

Taipei, Feb. 22 (CNA) A total of 2,939 gay couples got married in Taiwan in 2019, after it became the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, according to Ministry of the Interior (MOI) statistics released Saturday.

The majority of same-sex marriages registered between May 24, when the historic legislation took effect, and the end of the year were in New Taipei, Taipei and Kaohsiung, the MOI data showed.

New Taipei led with the registration of 614 same-sex marriages, followed by Taipei with 484 and Kaohsiung 396, according to the statistics.

Nationwide, the 2,939 same-sex marriages were between 928 male couples and 2,011 female partners, the data showed.

Heterosexual marriages, meanwhile, totaled 131,585 for the year, with Taiwanese couples accounting for 113,308, or 84.24 percent, according to the MOI statistics

Transnational marriages in which one spouse was Taiwanese totaled 21,216, or 15.77 percent, according to the MOI.

Among those transnational marriages, 42.45 percent of the foreign spouses, or 9,007, were from Southeast Asia, mostly from Vietnam, the data showed.

The second-largest group of foreign spouses was from China, accounting for 6,698, or 31.57 percent, followed by other nations and areas at 3,880 (18.29 percent), and Hong Kong and Macau at 1,631 (7.69 percent), according to the statistics.