There are around 600 million cats in the world, according to International Cat Care, owned and unowned. That’s about one for every fourteen people. Some sleep on beds. A lot of them sleep under cars.
International Cat Day, on 8 August, is for all of them. The animal welfare charity IFAW started it in 2002. Since 2020 it’s been run by International Cat Care, a charity that works with vets and cat groups worldwide.
We go back a long way
People and cats have lived side by side for close to ten thousand years. The oldest evidence comes from Cyprus, where we’re based. In 2004, archaeologists reported a cat buried beside a person in a grave about 9,500 years old.
The deal has barely changed since. Cats keep the mice down, and we leave them be. Most of the world’s cats still live somewhere between pet and wild: fed by someone, owned by no one.
Think CAT
Each year International Cat Care picks a theme. For 2026 it’s #ThinkCAT:
- C is for cat-friendly ways to care for and handle cats.
- A is for an annual check-up at the vet.
- T is for tips and advice through every stage of a cat’s life.
It’s written with pet cats in mind, but it works for street cats too. Cat-friendly means not chasing or grabbing them. A yearly check-up, for a street cat, often means getting it neutered and vaccinated when it’s trapped. And good advice is what our guides are for.
The cats that belong to nobody
Pet cats get most of the attention on 8 August. They’re easier to photograph. But in a 2024 study across 20 countries, around 203 million cats were living on the street, far more than in shelters.
Most of them don’t need a home. They need to be neutered, so fewer kittens are born to die. They need someone to feed them sensibly, and someone to notice when they’re ill. And they need to be counted, because it’s hard to get help for cats nobody can say are there.
What to do on 8 August
- Book your own cat’s yearly check-up.
- If your cat isn’t neutered, book that too.
- Give to a local neutering fund or cat rescue.
- Learn the slow blink, and try it on a cat you pass.
- Find out which cats on your street are neutered, and tell a local group about the ones that aren’t.
- Snap the cats on your street, so they’re counted.
Every cat you catch lands on the map. Six hundred million to go.
