Landrace

A landrace, or natural breed, is a group of cats that grew up in one region and adapted to its climate and conditions through natural selection and informal choice by local people. Nobody planned the mating, and there was no written standard. Over time the cats shared a look, such as a thick coat in a cold region or a lean frame in a hot one.

Many modern breeds started as landraces. The Norwegian Forest Cat, Siberian, Turkish Van, Turkish Angora and Maine Coon are often described as natural breeds, and so is the Arabian Mau in its home region. Fanciers collected the best local examples, wrote a breed standard, and registered the cats with a cat registry. After that, the breed was shaped by selection, and the show version may differ from the street cats where it began.

The term matters because landrace populations hold a wide gene pool, which can protect health, and they are part of local history. Conservation groups try to protect some from being lost to crossbreeding. When a landrace is first registered, its numbers are small, so a careful breeder watches inbreeding. A typical household cat in the same region may be a domestic shorthair with landrace ancestry.