The US-type breed was officially recognised and
registered by the
Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) in 1970 and
The International Cat Association (TICA) in 1979. Within the
Fédération Internationale Féline (FIFe), the Bombay only holds preliminary recognition status. The UK-type is registered as the
Asian Self under the
Asian group with the
Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (GCCF), which is the sole registry that recognises the British Bombay and operates in the UK.
Popularity The Bombay cat is a relatively rare breed among pedigree cats, both in the US and UK types. All the UK-type Bombays are pedigreed with the GCCF as the
Asian Self under the
Asian group. In 2023, only 160 kittens of the entire Asian group were pedigreed. There is no data available for the British Bombay specifically. The US-type is notably more popular than the UK-type, although still rare. In France specifically, an average of 45 Bombay kittens were born annually between 2003 and 2022. In 2024, only 13 Bombay kittens were registered with the major global registry FIFe, representing less than 0,1% of their total registrations and ranking place 49th out of the 54 breeds in popularity. Data from TICA, one of the largest cat registries globally, indicates that between 1979 and 2013, a total of 1085 Bombay cats (32 on average annually) were registered with them. PawPeds is the largest cat pedigree database worldwide, which contains data on both living and deceased cats across all pedigree organisations. As of June 2024, PawPeds reported a total of 1717 registered Bombay cats, with 406 of those born after January 2000. == Characteristics ==