Active orbital sites — order-of-magnitude launch counts
Active orbital launch sites, with an order of magnitude for launches carried out. A launch pad is not just infrastructure: it is first of all a geographical position.
Sites having carried out at least one recent orbital launch. Suborbital ranges and dormant sites are excluded; launch volumes are orders of magnitude.
Latitude governs everything. The closer a site is to the equator, the more free velocity the Earth's rotation provides — up to 465 m/s, worth several hundred kilos of payload. Polar orbits, conversely, are launched from high latitudes.
Kourou, in French Guiana, is the best-placed site in the world: 5° of latitude and an eastward launch over the ocean. Baikonur is in Kazakhstan — Russia has leased its main cosmodrome from a foreign country since 1991, which is why it built Vostochny.