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cute white cat walking on piano

Cats were first domesticated in the Near East around 7500 BC.[11] It was long thought that cat domestication began in ancient Egypt, where cats were venerated from around 3100 BC.[12][13] As of 2021, there are an estimated 220 million owned and 480 million stray cats in the world.[14][15] As of 2017, the domestic cat was the second-most popular pet in the United States, with 95 million cats owned.[16][17][18] In the United Kingdom, 26% of adults have a cat with an estimated population of 10.9 million pet cats as of 2020.