Persian cat

The Persian cat, also known as the Persian longhair, is a long-haired breed of cat characterized 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, however this has not been proven. Instead there is stronger evidence for a longhaired cat breed being exported from Afghanistan and Iran from the 19th century onwards. Widely recognized by cat fancy since the late 19th century, Persian cats were first adopted by the British, and later by American breeders after World War II. Some cat fancier organizations' 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 colors, but has also led to the creation of increasingly flat-faced Persian cats. Favored by fanciers, this head structure can bring with it a number of 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 breed, having a more pronounced muzzle, which is more popular with the general public. Hereditary polycystic kidney disease 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 non-profit cat registry. It is not clear when long-haired cats first appeared, as there are no known long-haired specimens of the African wildcat, the ancestor of the domestic species. 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.