A new map has revealed Britain's gay capitals - with rural Devon and Cambridgeshire nearly as popular as London, Brighton and Manchester.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has published its research on the number of people who are gay, lesbian and bisexual in the UK.

Its findings are broken down by county and local authority using data from 2013 to 2015.

A new map has revealed Britain's gay capitals - with rural Devon and Cambridgeshire nearly as popular as London, Brighton and Manchester

Six of the highest gay, lesbian or bisexual populations were in London, with Brighton and Manchester also topping the list.

But the county data sees Devon (1.3 per cent) above East Sussex (1.1 per cent). And Cambridgeshire had the second highest population (1.8 per cent), topped only by Inner London (3.1 per cent).

Co-founder of Proud2Be, Mat Price, admitted he was quite surprised by the results.

He told The Guardian: 'It might be that people are starting to feel like they can live in rural locations and not just in London, Brighton and Manchester, and maybe part of it is about feeling more confident to report it.'

The lowest populations of gay, lesbian and bisexual people were in North Yorkshire, Staffordshire and Northamptonshire - all with 0.4 per cent.

The data created by combining research on 560,000 people from the Annual Population Survey, which gathers information from confidential phone and face-to-face interviews.

Head of research at LGBT campaign group Stonewall, April Guasp, said: 'It's encouraging to see research efforts to gain a better understanding of the lesbian, gay, bi and trans population and identify the diverse needs of different LGBT communities in Britain.

'We welcome continued research as LGBT people continue to grow more comfortable in disclosing this information over time.'

Northern Ireland had the highest proportion of gay men (1.6 per cent), with England (1.5 per cent), Wales (1.3 per cent) and Scotland following (1.1 per cent).