Forest Elephants  Savanna Elephants  Asian Elephants

Loxodonta cyclotis

Numbers include both forest and savannah elephants

Estimates for total African elephants in 1979 were 1.3 million.  The IUCN/SSC African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG) is responsible for maintaining a database of information on the African elephant, including the difficult task of estimating populations.  The AfESG's 1998 population estimates for the whole continent were "definitely" 301,773 African elephants, with a "speculative" total of 487,345. The database itself is not really intended to yield an Africa-wide total and these figures need to be viewed with caution.  There are unknown numbers of elephants in dense forests and many areas have not been surveyed and prospective populations for those areas are not included in the speculative totals above. 

 Source AfESG website     African Elephant Specialist Group (of IUCN)

Forest Elephants  Savanna Elephants  Asian Elephants

The above links will take you to pages with population data.