India: The Land of the Tiger

India is called the land of the tiger because no other country is home to as many wild tigers. The All India Tiger Estimation 2022, released in 2023, put the national population at about 3,682 Bengal tigers, more than 60% of all the wild tigers left on Earth, living in a network of 58 tiger reserves. The tiger is also India's national animal, the mount of the goddess Durga and a figure woven through the country's temples, folklore and royal history. Habitat, prey, protection and culture explain why India has become the stronghold of a species still threatened with extinction.

How many tigers live in India today

Every wild tiger in India belongs to one subspecies, the Bengal tiger, Panthera tigris tigris. The 2022 count of about 3,682 continues a rise seen in every national estimate since 2006. Set that against the IUCN's 2022 assessment, which places the world's wild tigers somewhere between 3,726 and 5,578, with an average of about 4,500, and India clearly carries most of the species on its shoulders.

The 58 tiger reserves cover about 84,500 square km, roughly 2.5% of the country's land. That is an area about twice the size of Switzerland set aside with the tiger in mind. For the census figures and the trend over the years, see our guide to how many tigers are left in India, and for a comparison with Nepal, Russia and the other tiger countries, read where the largest tiger population lives.

Where tigers live in India

Not so long ago, tiger country stretched across almost the whole of India with no barrier from one end to the other. Today the range is broken into separate blocks, and tigers in one region often cannot reach those in the next. Isolated populations lose genetic diversity over time, which is why the corridors between reserves matter so much. India's tigers now live mainly in five kinds of landscape:

• The plains of northeast India
• The lowlands at the foot of the Himalayas
• The dry deciduous forests of the Indian peninsula
• The hills of the Western and Eastern Ghats
• The mangrove delta of the Sundarbans

The tiger adapts to a wide variety of habitats and moves easily from one to another when roads, farms and towns do not block the way. Its favorite ground is often the tall grass at the forest edge, along the rivers of the plains, where a striped coat disappears among the stems. Dense rainforest looks like ideal tiger habitat, with water and cover everywhere, yet it holds few large grazing animals, so tigers are rarely found deep inside it.

The long, hot dry season shapes the tiger's year. Rain becomes scarce across much of the country, water collects in the pools that have not dried out, and every grazing animal has to come and drink sooner or later. Tigers know it and wait near the waterholes. India also stands out for its large animals, the elephant, the gaur, the rhinoceros and the wild buffalo among them, and it is the only country in the world with both wild tigers and wild lions, the lions surviving in the Gir forest of Gujarat.

What tigers hunt in India

A tiger needs large prey, and India supplies it in numbers. Six species show the range of the menu.

Sambar. The largest deer in South and Southeast Asia lives in most tiger landscapes and is the tiger's favorite prey. It browses tree foliage as well as grass and gives a loud alarm call the moment it spots a tiger.

Chital. The spotted deer is much smaller than the sambar. It grazes short grass, eats fallen leaves and can rise on its hind legs to reach leaves and fruit. Herds favor open forest with shade, and tigers hunt them often.

Barking deer. Also called the Indian muntjac, it lives from the mountains down to the deciduous forests of the plains. It is small and hard to catch, so a tiger takes one mainly when it is hungry.

Wild buffalo. One of the largest wild cattle in the world spends much of its time in swamps, where a tiger can hardly touch it. On open ground it becomes far more vulnerable.

Sloth bear. Weighing about 90 to 140 kg, the sloth bear lives in forests across much of India and climbs trees to raid bees' nests. It defends itself fiercely, so tigers attack one only on rare occasions, usually when food is short. Our article on a sloth bear against a tiger looks at those encounters.

Elephant. Adult elephants are dangerous to hunt, so tigers that do attack go for calves. Herds help the tiger in another way: they pull down branches and creepers as they feed, deer gather to eat what is left, and tigers follow the herds to hunt those deer.

By keeping deer and other grazers in check, the tiger stops them from stripping the plants, which keeps the whole forest in balance. To bring a little of that jungle home, browse our tiger canvas paintings, from jungle scenes to Indian-inspired designs.

How India protects its tigers

Why tigers became endangered

The tiger has been endangered for about half a century, and people are the reason. An adult tiger has no natural predator, yet poaching, the destruction of its habitat and the loss of its prey drove it down. Poachers target its fur and the body parts used in traditional Chinese medicine. Tigers once lived across much of Asia, and the Bengal tiger over almost the entire Indian subcontinent; wild numbers worldwide fell to about 3,200 before recovering. As villages spread into tiger country, conflicts followed.

Project Tiger and the reserves

India answered with Project Tiger, launched on April 1, 1973, and still running today. Its goal is a viable population of tigers in the wild rather than in captivity. The project fought poaching, which is now punished far more severely, and expanded the reserves, a policy that led more than 50,000 villagers to move so tigers could have room. Corbett National Park, where Project Tiger began, shows the result: tigers there can hold territories of up to 150 square km largely undisturbed.

The threats that remain

The work is not finished. Lantana, an invasive shrub that grazing animals will not eat, has spread across more than 40% of India's tiger range and crowds out the plants deer depend on. Poaching has fallen but not disappeared, pressure on tiger land continues, and many reserves are short of forest staff.

The tiger in Indian culture and belief

In Hindu tradition the tiger is a sacred animal. The goddess Durga, the warrior consort of Shiva, rides a tiger into her greatest battle, against the buffalo demon Mahishasura, and the animal stands for her limitless power. Shiva himself is often shown seated on or wearing a tiger skin. Indian royalty honored the tiger as a sign of wealth and power, and in folk belief it carries a human soul inside a predator's body, a bridge between the spirit of the forest and human society.

That reverence shows up in homes too, in carved and painted tigers set on shelves and altars. Our tiger figurine collection gathers roaring, prowling and family scenes in sculpted form, and the wider tiger decor range adds statues, tapestries, rugs and cushion covers.

Living alongside tigers in the Sundarbans

Respect for the tiger sits side by side with fear, nowhere more than in the Sundarbans, the mangrove delta shared by India and Bangladesh. Its reputation as a man-eater comes largely from here. In one study covering 1990 to 2018, tigers in the Sundarbans killed 168 people and wounded 247, and in another, about 60% of the people killed had been partly eaten, so many of these attacks are predatory rather than defensive.

Tigers here attack from behind and by stealth, which is why honey collectors and fishermen have long worn a mask on the back of the head when they enter the swamps, in the belief that a tiger will not strike a person who seems to be watching it. Folklore also says a tiger that tastes human flesh will want nothing else. That is a belief, but studies do suggest a tiger that has learned people are easy prey is more likely to attack again. To see how the cat stalks and strikes, read our article on how a tiger attacks.

What India's example means for other tigers

India's record shows that tigers can recover when land and laws are set aside for them. Other range countries are following their own paths. In the Russian Far East, the Siberian tiger is still endangered, but its numbers have grown to more than 750, cubs included.

If you would like the calm of an Indian forest on your own walls, our tiger wall stickers bring a resting or walking tiger straight onto the paint.