The State With The Most Cats As Pets

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Dec 12, 8:59AM EST

The State With The Most Cats As Pets — © Nils Jacobi / iStock / Getty Images Plus

Cats are second only to dogs in terms of popular pets in the U.S. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, almost 32 million households have cats. Being a cat owner can be expensive. A pedigree kitten can cost between $200 and $2,000. The ASPCA reports that the cost to keep a cat per year is over $600. This includes food, toys, litter boxes, and vet visits.

Research about cats has become a small industry. According to Smithsonian magazine, there are plenty of studies about whether cats are smarter than dogs. The key conclusion is that

For now we don’t have any clear answers about whether cats or dogs are smarter—or even how meaningful of a distinction that would be—let alone which is “better.”

Cat ownership across the U.S. is not uniform. To pick the state with the most cats, 24/7 Tempo reviewed data from the Pet Ownership and Demographics Sourcebook, published in 2020 by the American Veterinary Medical Association for companion animal veterinarians and the animal health industry.

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Collected in 2017-2018, the data is the most recent available, reflecting the total number of households and the number and percentage of cat-owning households in the 48 contiguous states as of December 31, 2016.

Cats seem to be particularly popular in the Northeast. The states with the most cats include Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire — though another New England state, Rhode Island, is at the bottom when it comes to cats. Like cats themselves, the statistics seem to have a mind of their own.

The state with the most cats as pets is Vermont. Here are the details:

> Households with at least one cat: 44.6%
> Number of cat-owning households: 118,000 — 7th fewest
> Number of human households: 265,000 — 2nd fewest
> Cat population: 150,000 — 4th smallest

Click here to read States With The Most Cats As Pets

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.