Thousands of years ago, lions lived across much more of the world, including parts of Europe and Asia, and as of November 2026 lions have disappeared from over 90 percent of the places they once lived; almost all wild lions live in Africa, and a small group lives in India. Lions live in many kinds of places, including grassland, open woodland and scrub, and some lions live high in the mountains, at about 4,200 meters (13,800 feet) above sea level, but lions do not live in tropical rainforests. As of November 2026, lion numbers in Africa have dropped by about half in roughly 25 to 30 years, with an estimated 22,000 to 25,000 wild lions remaining in Africa.

The lions of Tanzania's Serengeti have been studied without a break since 1966, so scientists can follow the same lions from birth to death, and George Schaller's 1972 book The Serengeti Lion, from his study of those lions, won a National Book Award and became the foundational text on lions; scientists also put tracking collars on lions to follow where they go. As of November 2026, a census in 2025 counted 891 Asiatic lions in the state of Gujarat, India, and, as of November 2026, about 44 percent of Gujarat's Asiatic lions live outside protected forests, among farmland, roads and villages. The lions of Tanzania's Ngorongoro Crater are a small, isolated group of about 60, and genetic studies decades apart both found signs of inbreeding in them; small, isolated lion populations can lose genetic diversity, which threatens their survival.

Lions are threatened by habitat loss and by conflict with people over livestock, and lions are losing the wild animals they eat, which adds to their decline; when wild prey becomes scarce, lions may turn to hunting farm animals, and farmers who lose livestock to lions sometimes kill lions in revenge. People who put out poison for predators also endanger lions, which scavenge carcasses, and people kill lions for their body parts, which are sold in the illegal wildlife trade. Programs in Africa work to protect lions while cutting the loss of farmers' livestock, and as of November 2026 conservation groups have set goals to rebuild wild lion numbers; the IUCN Red List lists the lion as Vulnerable to extinction.

Most kinds of cats live alone, but lions live together in groups called prides, and a pride is built around related adult females and their young, plus a few adult males who are not their relatives. Female lions usually stay in the pride they were born into, often for life, and lionesses in a pride raise their cubs together; lions can recognize other individual lions, and lions in a pride show affection by touching, rubbing heads and licking each other. Young male lions leave the pride they were born in when they grow big enough to compete with the older males.

Words to know

• census: a count
• inbreeding: mating between relatives
• isolated: cut off
• carcasses: dead animals