Until a few decades ago, there were African elephants in almost all sub-Saharan countries. Nowadays there are not many elephants left in West Africa. You can still find elephants in the Central and Eastern part of Africa, but not as many as there used to be. In Southern Africa there are still larger numbers in protected areas. In Asia, elephants still live in the wild in Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Bangla Desh, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia and smaller areas of Cambodia, China, Laos, Vietnam and Indonesia.

The exact number of elephants is not known - various counts and calculations have arrived at different conclusions. What is clear, however, is that their numbers are decreasing. It is believed there were still 5 million African elephants in 1930; in 1990 there were only 600,000 left and at the moment it is estimated that there are 200,000 or 300,000 left. In 1900 there were probably about 200,000 Asiatic elephants; in 1991 there were only 50,000 (15,000 in captivity) and now the estimates are 25,000 to 30,000. In certain countries, like Vietnam, there have always been elephants, but now there are only about one hundred left.

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