Chinchilla Persian

The Persian cat, also known as the Persian Longhair, is a long-haired breed of cat characterised by a round face and short muzzle. The first documented ancestors of Persian cats might have been imported into Italy from Khorasan as early as around 1620, but this has not been proven. Instead, there is stronger evidence for a longhaired cat breed being exported from Afghanistan and Iran/Persia from the 19th century onwards. Persian cats have been widely recognised by the North-West European cat fancy since the 19th century, and after World War II by breeders from North America, Australia and New Zealand. Some cat fancier organisations' breed standards subsume the Himalayan and Exotic Shorthair as variants of this breed, while others generally treat them as separate breeds.

The selective breeding carried out by breeders has allowed the development of a wide variety of coat colours, but has also led to the creation of increasingly flat-faced Persian cats. Favoured by fanciers, this head structure can bring with it several health problems. As is the case with the Siamese breed, there have been efforts by some breeders to preserve the older type of cat, the '' Traditional Persian'', which has a more pronounced muzzle. Hereditary polycystic kidney disease (PKD) is prevalent in the breed, affecting almost half of the population in some countries.

In 2021, Persian cats were ranked as the fourth-most popular cat breed in the world according to the Cat Fanciers' Association, an American international cat registry.

History

Origin

The exact time of the appearance of long-haired cats is unclear, as no long-haired specimens of the African wildcat, the ancestor of the domestic species, are known.

The first documented ancestors of the Persian cat might have been imported from Khorasan, either Eastern Iran or Western Afghanistan, into the Italian Peninsula in 1620 by Pietro Della Valle; and from Damascus, Syria, into France by Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc at around the same time. While the de Peiresc import from Syria is corroborated by later correspondences, Della Valle is only known to have voiced his intention in a letter from 1620 but returned to Italy much later in 1626 after travelling several other countries with the remains of his wife in tow and no further mention of the cats.

In his letter from 1620, Della Valle distinguishes the Khorasan cat from similar long-haired cats imported to Europe from the Near East by their grey coat:

Albeit of unclear geographic faithfulness, the name Persian cat was eventually given to cats imported from Afghanistan, Iran, and likely some adjacent regions for marketing purposes in Europe. Persian-speakers themselves are not documented to refer to any breed of cat as "Persian cat", or . Instead, variations of , , and appear in Persian dictionaries of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In 1815, Lord Elphinstone described the cats in Kabul thus:

In 1839 Lieutenant Irwin notes that “a variety of cat is bred in Cabul, and some parts of Toorkistan. By us it is very improperly called "Persian", for very few are found in Persia, and none exported. The Cabulees call this cat bubuk uruk?or boorrak, and they encourage the growth of his long hair by washing it with soap and combing it.”

Seeing as the British seemed to assume the majority of Persian cats stemmed from Afghanistan, there is reason to infer that no small portion of the original Persian cat breed stock was, among other places, imported from Afghanistan to Britain and other European countries.

However, the Persian cat was not only exported to Europe by this time but also to India. In 1885 Edward Balfour describes the Afghan trade of long-haired cats to India: “The long silky-furred Angora cats are annually brought to India for sale from Afghanistan, with caravans of camels, even so far as Calcutta.”

Similarly in 1882, Jane Dieulafoy, travelling in Iran from Isfahan to Shiraz in a caravan heading for Bušehr, observes “an inhabitant of Yezd in Kirmania, who transported from Tauris nowiki/>Tabriz">Tabriz.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Tabriz">nowiki/>Tabrizto Mumbai">Bombay