How many tigers are left in the world?

As few as 3,200 tigers remain in the world as of March 2014. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were 100,000 tigers worldwide. This means that the number of tigers in the wild has dropped approximately 97 percent in the past century.

India houses the largest population of tigers. Official estimates from 2009 indicate 1,200 to 1,500 tigers living on 27 wildlife reserves in that country. During the past 70 years, three tiger subspecies have become extinct, and the South China tiger is practically extinct. There are only 20 to 30 members of that subspecies remaining in the wild.