To reduce thickness and to reduce the parts count in a liquid crystal display element equipped with a backlight.

A common substrate 2 is disposed on the display surface side and a segment substrate 1 is disposed on the opposite side thereof. A light source 13 is arranged on the one end face side of the segment substrate 1. A low refractive index layer 3 is disposed on an inside surface of the segment substrate 1. The low refractive index layer 3 is to make light obliquely incident on a boundary surface between it and the segment substrate 1 totally reflected on the boundary surface based on the difference of the refractive indexes between it and the segment substrate 1 and to make light nearly vertically incident on the boundary surface between it and the segment substrate 1 transmitted directly. An optical path converting optical sheet 16 to convert the optical path to a direction nearly vertical to the inside surface of the segment substrate 1 is stuck to an outside surface of the segment substrate 1. Consequently the segment substrate 1 also serves as a light guide plate.