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Gayborhoods Around the World

"Gayborhood" is a relatively new term, probably born in a newspaper headline in Philadelphia in the 1990s, but gay villages - enclaves where LGBTQ could feel at home - have long existed, particularly in bohemian sections of large urban centers. Berlin's Schöneberg became perhaps the world's first gay village by the 1920s. With new anti-discrimination laws, established LGBTQ communities have multiplied in many cities, and even small towns have gayborhoods. No longer ghettos, they are often vanguards of gentrification and centers of nightlife, shopping and culture.

Farme de Amoedo

Farme de Amoedo

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Farme de Amoedo is Rio's LGBTQ area with a wide selection of restaurants, bars and clubs and a main hub around the corner of Farme and Visconde de Pirajá...
  • Neighborhood
  • 4
  • 4
Zona Rosa

Zona Rosa

Mexico City, Mexico

The Colonia Juárez neighborhood west of Mexico City's historic center is best known for its Zona Rosa and the gayborhood around Amberes Street. The 1985...
  • Neighborhood
  • Food & drink
  • 4.6
  • 1
Wilton Manors

Wilton Manors

Fort Lauderdale, United States

Wilton Manors is more than a gayborhood. It is a whole municipality, which has been revitalized and transformed by LGBT residents. With 140 gay couples per 1,000...
  • Neighborhood
  • 5
  • 2
West Hollywood

West Hollywood

Los Angeles, United States

West Hollywood covers only 1.9 square miles (c. 5 km2) but into that real estate is packed perhaps the greatest concentration of gay hotels, nightspots, shopping,...
  • Neighborhood
  • 4.7
  • 1
Glockenbachviertel

Glockenbachviertel

Munich, Germany

Named after a former casting facility from the 15th and 16th century where church bells were produced, the Glockenbachviertel is definitively Munich's trendiest...
  • Neighborhood
  • Food & drink
  • 4
  • 1
Church and Wellesley

Church and Wellesley

Toronto, Canada

Toronto's gay village dates back to the 19th and early 20th century when part of the neighborhood was owned by merchant Alexander Wood, known to be a homosexual...
  • Cultural & Historical
  • Food & drink
  • Neighborhood
  • 5
  • 1
Soho

Soho

London, England

London's Soho has long been the center of pleasures, guilty and otherwise, and since the 1980s one of the world's best known gayborhoods. Old favorites like The...
  • Neighborhood
Hillcrest

Hillcrest

San Diego, United States

A small affluent neighborhood of Craftsman homes and mid-century modern apartment buildings, Hillcrest is famous for its tolerance and its well-established LGBTQ...
  • Neighborhood
Davie Village

Davie Village

Vancouver, Canada

Davie Village - the stretch of Davie Street between Burrard and Jervis Streets - is the most densely-populated LGBTQ section of Vancouver. Filled with rainbow...
  • Performing arts
  • Neighborhood
  • Food & drink
  • Cultural & Historical
  • City Tour
  • Walking
Le Marais

Le Marais

Paris, France

The gayest part of "Gay Paree" since the 1980s is Le Marais, a historic quartier filled with medieval buildings, chic boutiques and bustling cafés, spilling out...
  • Neighborhood
  • Food & drink
  • Cultural & Historical
Vauxhall

Vauxhall

London, England

Vauxhall, sometimes referred to as VoHo or Vauxhall Gay Village, rose to gay prominence when SoHo began to lose a bit of its gritty gayborhood shine. South of the...
  • Neighborhood
  • City Tour
Midtown

Midtown

Atlanta, United States

Midtown was once the definitive heart of gay Atlanta. As with many gayborhoods, high-priced condos and mainstream businesses have moved in, but for decades...
  • Neighborhood
The Castro

The Castro

San Francisco, United States

The Castro is a historic gay village with iconic status in LGBT history. It became one of the first gay neighborhoods in the US mid-century as gays moved into...
  • Neighborhood
Palermo Soho

Palermo Soho

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Gay life is all over Buenos Aires, but the gayest is in the Palermo Soho neighborhood, named because of its resemblance to New York's trendy Soho. It's a barrio...
  • Neighborhood
Chueca

Chueca

Madrid, Spain

Chueca is a rabbit's warren of narrow streets just north of Madrid's historic center filled with LGBTQ clubs, bars, restaurants and shops of all descriptions....
  • Neighborhood
Schöneberg

Schöneberg

Berlin, Germany

Schöneberg's identity as a gay village goes back to Berlin's sexual liberation scene in the early 20th century and Christopher Isherwood's 1930s tales that...
  • Neighborhood
The Gayborhood

The Gayborhood

Philadelphia, United States

In Philadelphia, the gayborhood is spelled with a capital "G" and just might be where the term was coined. The mid-century concentration of semi-public gay life...
  • Neighborhood
Eixample

Eixample

Barcelona, Spain

North of Plaça Catalunya, Barcelona's Eixample (pronounced "eshaumplay") is where both the gay and the straight shop, stay and play. Because of the preponderance...
  • Neighborhood
  • Cultural & Historical
Boystown

Boystown

Chicago, United States

This North Side Chicago neighborhood, official East Lakeview, is home to one of the more lively LGBTQ communities in the US, filled with an eclectic selection of...
  • Architecture
  • Food & drink
  • Neighborhood
Kemptown

Kemptown

Brighton, England

Historically frequented by artists and actors, Kemptown is Brighton's LGBTQ quarter, brimming with gay bars, clubs, shops, restaurants and guesthouses,...
  • Neighborhood

Let us know what you think, add information or share your experience: .

Luis Manuel Lopez

Added 6 years ago

Downtown Puerto Vallarta is also a Gay Neigborhood, In fact is the most gay city in Mexico

ellgeeBE is cultivated and enriched by community members like you.

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