How many species of elephants are living today?

There are three living species of elephants: the African bush elephant, African forest elephant, and Asian elephant.

The African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana) is the largest, ranging across much of sub-Saharan Africa. The smaller African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) lives mainly in the forests of central and West Africa. The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) is found in parts of South and Southeast Asia.

Older references often treated African elephants as one species, which explains why some people still answer “two”: they are counting African and Asian elephants rather than recognising the two distinct African species. Genetic and morphological evidence supports separating the bush and forest elephants, although their ranges can overlap in some regions.

Elephants belong to the order Proboscidea, which also includes extinct relatives such as mammoths and mastodons. Many other proboscidean species once lived, but only these three elephant species survive today.