To provide a surface light source element having high intensity and superb appearance quality, and a high appearance-quality display using the element.

The surface light source element comprises light sources 2, reflectors 8, and a light guide 3 where the light reflected by the reflectors 8 are made incident on at least one end surface of the light guide 3, and an outgoing-light control plate 4 provided with a plurality of projections, set on the control-plate surface facing the light guide 3, in order to direct the light from the light-emitting surface to the frontal direction of the light-emitting surface. In the surface light source element, the projection tips on the outgoing- light control plate 4 and the outgoing-light surface of the light guide 3 are optically in close contact with each other through an optically transparent layer, and a light-diffusing layer 5 is placed on the outgoing-light surface of the outgoing-light control plate 4.