No one knows the exact number, but the most common estimates suggest that there are somewhere between 600 and 900 million cats in the world, and some assessments land even higher. How many cats there are in the world depends entirely on what you count: owned house cats alone make up hundreds of millions, and on top of that come the many stray and feral cats that no one keeps records of. That is why any figure you come across is an educated estimate and not a count.
The cat is one of the world's most widespread pets and lives on virtually every inhabited continent. Its close bond with humans means that the cat population follows wherever we live, but precisely because cats also manage on their own, a large portion of them escape every statistic.
Why there is no exact number
Cats cannot be counted the same way people are. There are no civil registries for cats, and only a small share of the world's cats are registered, chipped or insured. Owned house cats are the ones we know the most about, because industry organisations and veterinarians regularly conduct surveys of how many households have a cat. But even here, the figures are based on samples and questionnaires, not on a complete count.
The really big uncertainty lies with the cats that no one owns. Stray cats living in and around cities, and feral cats in the countryside and in nature, move freely, reproduce quickly and are rarely counted. Their numbers can only be estimated from local counts in defined areas, which are then scaled up. This is a method with great uncertainty, and it is the main reason why estimates of the total number vary by several hundred million.
How the many cats are distributed
Fundamentally, the world's cats can be divided into three groups. First, there are the owned house cats, who live with a family and are served meals every day. Next, the stray cats, who often live close to humans in cities and settlements and live wholly or partly off what they find or off what people feed them. And finally, the feral cats, who manage without any permanent attachment to humans.
The boundaries between the groups are fluid. A cat can start out as owned, be abandoned and end up as a stray, and stray cats can have kittens that have never lived close to humans. This gradual transition is yet another reason why the total number is so hard to determine, and why different sources arrive at different results.
Where in the world there are the most cats
The number of owned cats is greatest in populous countries and in regions where the cat has traditionally been a popular pet. The USA and several European countries are among those with the most house cats, and in large Asian countries the size of the population pushes the figures up. But a high population does not automatically mean many cats per household, as this varies with culture, housing conditions and local traditions.
In Denmark, the cat is one of the most widespread pets, and several hundred thousand owned cats live across the country. If you want to look more closely at the Danish picture, you can read more in the guide how many cats are there in denmark. Here too, owned cats are easier to count than strays, so the real number is higher than the official estimates.
The cat as a species and its close relatives
When we talk about the world's cats in everyday life, we mean the domestic cat, which has lived alongside humans for thousands of years. It differs from the wild cats such as lions, tigers and panthers, which belong to other species and live in nature in far smaller numbers. The enormous spread of the domestic cat is precisely due to its adaptation to a life side by side with us.
Even though the domestic cat is domesticated, it has retained many of its natural instincts. It is a born hunter, and this can be seen in both its behaviour and its need for a meal with a high content of animal ingredients. If you want to know more about what the cat eats by nature, the article what do cats eat in the wild provides a thorough insight.
What the cat's nature means for its meals
No matter how many cats there are in the world, they all share the same biology. The cat is a distinctly carnivorous predator, and this places concrete demands on its nutrition. A meal must reflect what the cat is made to eat, with a high proportion of animal ingredients and a nutritional profile that suits its needs throughout life.
At ESSENTIAL FOODS, we prepare cat meals from fresh raw materials and human-grade ingredients, so that taste and nutrition go hand in hand. For the adult cat there is, among others, the little lion, the Jaguar and the Panther, each composed with the cat's preferences and needs in mind. If your cat has reached an older age, you will find meals composed for exactly that life stage in the collection meals for senior cats.
If you are unsure about what suits your particular cat best, ESSENTIAL FOODS' nutrition advisors are ready by phone, chat and email to advise on feeding, food and nutrition. They can help you find the meal that matches your cat's age, taste and daily wellbeing, so that one of the world's many cats gets exactly what it needs.