How Many Tigers Are Left in the World? Population Today

The latest global tiger estimate

Counting tigers is difficult, because they are shy, solitary and live in dense forest. Modern surveys rely on camera traps, which photograph tigers as they pass. Each tiger has a unique stripe pattern, so researchers can identify individuals and use statistical models to estimate how many tigers live in an area, including those never photographed.

The IUCN’s 2022 assessment estimated 3,726–5,578 wild tigers, of which roughly 2,600–3,900 are mature adults able to breed. This range is higher than earlier estimates, partly because numbers have risen in some countries and partly because survey methods have improved.

Tigers by country

The figures below come from the most recent national surveys. They use different methods and years, so they should be read as approximate.

Tigers are now considered extinct or functionally extinct in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, where snaring for the bushmeat trade removed both tigers and their prey. They were lost from Central Asia, Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan earlier.

The Tx2 goal: doubling wild tigers

In November 2010, leaders of the 13 tiger range countries met in St Petersburg, Russia, and agreed a Global Tiger Recovery Program. Its headline target, known as Tx2, was to double the number of wild tigers by 2022, the next Chinese Year of the Tiger. At the time, the world population was thought to be as low as about 3,200.

The global number did not quite double, but the goal changed the picture in several countries:

• India grew from about 1,411 tigers in 2006 to 1,706 in 2010, 2,226 in 2014, 2,967 in 2018 and about 3,682 in 2022.
• Nepal went from about 121 tigers in 2009 to 355 in 2022, nearly tripling, helped by years of “zero poaching” and strong army-backed patrols.
• Russia increased its Amur tiger population from roughly 450–500 around 2010 to about 750.
• Bhutan and Bangladesh also reported modest increases.

In 2016, conservation groups announced that the global estimate had risen for the first time in about a century. The main ingredients of success were well-protected core reserves, anti-poaching patrols, recovering deer and wild pig populations, wildlife corridors between reserves and regular monitoring.

Why tigers are still endangered

Even with more tigers in India, the species occupies only about 7% of its historical range, and most populations are small and isolated. Thailand’s tigers, for example, live in protected areas that are mostly cut off from each other.

The main threats are:

• Poaching for skins, bones and other parts sold illegally, much of it for traditional medicine markets.
• Snaring of prey animals, which also catches tigers and empties forests of food.
• Habitat loss to plantations, farms, mines and roads.
• Conflict with people over livestock, which leads to revenge killings.

Tigers are protected by law in every range country, and international trade is banned under CITES Appendix I. To see how tigers compare with other species at risk, see endangered animals.

Extinct tiger populations

Three regional forms have disappeared within living memory:

• Bali tiger: the smallest tiger, last confirmed in the 1930s and extinct by about the 1940s or 1950s.
• Caspian tiger: once found from Turkey and Iran to Central Asia; it died out in the 1970s. Its closest living relative is the Amur tiger, and Kazakhstan is preparing to reintroduce tigers to its former range.
• Javan tiger: last confirmed in the 1970s.

The South China tiger has not been reliably recorded in the wild for decades and is considered probably extinct there, although some survive in Chinese zoos.

Captive tigers vs wild tigers

There are more tigers in captivity than in the wild. Around 2020 there were estimated to be more than 8,000 captive tigers in Asia, over 5,000 in the United States and at least 850 in Europe. Many live in roadside zoos, private collections and “tiger farms” that breed tigers for their parts.

Only a small share of these tigers are managed in accredited breeding programs with known ancestry. Conservationists stress that captive breeding cannot replace protection of wild tigers, and that commercial tiger farms may increase demand for tiger products. The US banned new private ownership of big cats in 2022.

For how tigers compare with other big cats in numbers, lions are also declining, with roughly 20,000–25,000 left (see Are lions endangered?).