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Data

Number of African elephants

About this data

Source
African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG); Great Elephant Census; Asian Elephant Specialist Group (AsESG) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
May 30, 2025
Date range
1979–2016

Related research and writing

The state of the world's elephant populations

Hannah Ritchie

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG); Great Elephant Census; Asian Elephant Specialist Group (AsESG) – elephant_populations

Data on elephant populations was gathered on two species: the African elephant, and the Asian elephant.

African elephant population data was primarily gathered from the African Elephant Database. Available at: https://africanelephantdatabase.org/report/2016/Africa

Prior to 2013, this data was collected and reported on the basis of the DPPS method, where estimates were given as 'Definite', 'Probable', 'Possible' and 'Speculative'. Here we have taken "Definitive" survey counts for all years. However, we also compared data based on "Definitive" + "Probable" estimates, and the overall trends are similar. However, these counts always come with uncertainty. Longer historical estimates for 1979 come from the work of Douglas-Hamilton (1979). These estimates come with significant uncertainty, and may be overestimates.

Figures for some countries on 'carcass ratio' are also provided. The carcass ratio is the number of dead elephants observed during the count, as a percentage of the total population. Carcass ratios of more than 8 percent are considered to indicate poaching at a high enough level to cause a declining population.

Asian elephant population data is sourced primarily from the Asian Elephant Specialist Group (AsESG); UN FAO and national records. Latest estimates are available here: https://iucn.org/our-union/commissions/group/iucn-ssc-asian-elephant-specialist-group

These have been supplemented with longer records for Nepal (http://www.fao.org/3/ad031e/ad031e0e.htm); China (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0124834); Vietnam (http://www.fao.org/3/ad031e/ad031e0f.htm); and India (https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/23637/7/07_chapter%201.pdf).

Retrieved on
May 30, 2025
Retrieved from
https://africanelephantdatabase.org/
https://iucn.org/our-union/commissions/group/iucn-ssc-asian-elephant-specialist-group
https://peerj.com/articles/2354/

Data on elephant populations was gathered on two species: the African elephant, and the Asian elephant.

African elephant population data was primarily gathered from the African Elephant Database. Available at: https://africanelephantdatabase.org/report/2016/Africa

Prior to 2013, this data was collected and reported on the basis of the DPPS method, where estimates were given as 'Definite', 'Probable', 'Possible' and 'Speculative'. Here we have taken "Definitive" survey counts for all years. However, we also compared data based on "Definitive" + "Probable" estimates, and the overall trends are similar. However, these counts always come with uncertainty. Longer historical estimates for 1979 come from the work of Douglas-Hamilton (1979). These estimates come with significant uncertainty, and may be overestimates.

Figures for some countries on 'carcass ratio' are also provided. The carcass ratio is the number of dead elephants observed during the count, as a percentage of the total population. Carcass ratios of more than 8 percent are considered to indicate poaching at a high enough level to cause a declining population.

Asian elephant population data is sourced primarily from the Asian Elephant Specialist Group (AsESG); UN FAO and national records. Latest estimates are available here: https://iucn.org/our-union/commissions/group/iucn-ssc-asian-elephant-specialist-group

These have been supplemented with longer records for Nepal (http://www.fao.org/3/ad031e/ad031e0e.htm); China (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0124834); Vietnam (http://www.fao.org/3/ad031e/ad031e0f.htm); and India (https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/23637/7/07_chapter%201.pdf).

Retrieved on
May 30, 2025
Retrieved from
https://africanelephantdatabase.org/
https://iucn.org/our-union/commissions/group/iucn-ssc-asian-elephant-specialist-group
https://peerj.com/articles/2354/

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At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Number of African elephants”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG); Great Elephant Census; Asian Elephant Specialist Group (AsESG). Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-094028/grapher/african-elephants.html [online resource] (archived on March 4, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG); Great Elephant Census; Asian Elephant Specialist Group (AsESG) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG); Great Elephant Census; Asian Elephant Specialist Group (AsESG) – processed by Our World in Data. “Number of African elephants” [dataset]. African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG); Great Elephant Census; Asian Elephant Specialist Group (AsESG), “elephant_populations” [original data]. Retrieved April 1, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-094028/grapher/african-elephants.html (archived on March 4, 2026).

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Download the data shown in this chart as a ZIP file containing a CSV file, metadata in JSON format, and a README. The CSV file can be opened in Excel, Google Sheets, and other data analysis tools.

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Data API

Use these URLs to programmatically access this chart's data and configure your requests with the options below. Our documentation provides more information on how to use the API, and you can find a few code examples below.

Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/african-elephants.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false
Metadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/african-elephants.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false

Code examples

Examples of how to load this data into different data analysis tools.

Excel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/african-elephants.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests

# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/african-elephants.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})

# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/african-elephants.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()
R
library(jsonlite)

# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/african-elephants.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")

# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/african-elephants.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/african-elephants.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear