which country was the first to grant women the right to vote?

The first country to grant women the right to vote in national parliamentary elections was New Zealand in 1893.

Quick Scoop

• In 1893, New Zealand became the first self-governing nation where all adult women could vote in national elections (though they still could not stand for Parliament until 1919).

• Earlier, some places had partial or local voting rights for women, like female landowners voting locally in parts of the Netherlands in 1689 and in Sweden in certain local elections, but these were limited and sometimes later revoked.

• Finland followed as the first European country to give women full voting rights (and the right to run for office) in 1906.

In history forums and Q&A sites, when people ask “Which country was the first to grant women the right to vote?” , the accepted answer is almost always New Zealand, 1893 , because it was the first modern, self- governing state with permanent, nationwide women’s suffrage.

A tiny story version

Imagine it’s 1893 in New Zealand: after years of petitions and organizing, women finally win the right to cast a ballot in national elections, shocking many other countries that still treated women as political outsiders. What started there helped set a visible precedent that other nations—from Finland to Russia to countries across Europe and the Americas—would follow in the decades leading into the 20th century.

TL;DR: If someone asks, “Which country was the first to grant women the right to vote?” the historically accepted, exam-style answer is New Zealand (1893).

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.