Which cat breeds have an Italian origin?

The European Shorthair is said to be derived from the cats that the ancient Romans brought with them as the Roman Empire spread through Europe. They're rare in the U.S. read more

The breed was actually developed in Scandinavia, where the developers of the breed took regular European house cats and selectively bred them to come up with a cat that would resemble those ancient Roman cats. read more

There are two famous breeds originating from Anatolia — the Van cat and the Ankara cat — with a long history through many civilisations. We can fairly say that the origin of the Van cat is very intertwined with the history of Van - a historic Armenian capital where historically Armenians, Kurds, Assyrians lived and interacted with Persians, Greeks and Semitic and later Turkic peoples. read more

View Purebred Cats – Places of Origin in a larger map. The history of some breeds is not that clear. Some of the natural and very long standing breeds are clearer such as the Siamese cat or Turkish Van. The names of these cat breeds tell what we need to know, almost. However, with the natural breeds we can usually only locate the country of origin. read more