Singapura - photo copyright Helmi Flick - please respect copyright thank you.
The Singapura is commonly regarded as the smallest breed of cat. This cat is said to come from Singapore, hence the name. But a well known cat person1 who went there could not see any on the streets. They are also called the 'drain cat' because they are meant to live in the drains.
The more cynical amongst us might say there has been a bit of judicious 'glossing up' of the facts to make the breed more attractive to buyers. But I am not saying that this happened. This breed may simply have been bred through selective breeding.
The Singapura is a rare cat and it is not a popular cat. These two facts probably support each other. If a cat is rare people don't know about it and therefore it must lack popularity.
The weight of the Singapura is between 4 - 9 pounds or 2 - 4 kilograms.
The smallest cats (not being restricted to purebred cats) weigh in the order of 3+ pounds. Although there are a number of sites on the internet that refer to the world's smallest cat (ever) and sometimes refer to the Guinness World Records (GWR), this organisation do not, at 2010, have a record for the world's smallest cat. This is for health reasons I understand. There are only two records currently listed in GWR for cats to the best of my knowledge.
Remember the title to this post is smallest breed of cat, so it only applies to cat breeds which are purebred cats with a pedigree. There are over 100 cat breeds but about 50 mainstream cat breeds. Purebred cats are quite rare in countries such as England but more common in the USA.
Also please note that small cats that are described as 'teacup cats' and 'miniature cats' are not breeds of cat. They cannot therefore be part of this page.
For the sake of completeness, teacup cat and miniature cats, on the whole, weigh a bit less than the Singapura. They are also rare cats and only bred, as far as I aware, in the United States of America. This may be because they are more suitable for full-time indoor living which is commonplace in the US.
Wild Cat Species
Although not a breed of cat, the Rusty-spotted cat is the world's smallest wildcat.
As females weigh in at an average of 1 kg (2.2 lbs), it is very likely that the smallest cat in the world is an unknown individual cat in dense vegetation in India that no one has seen.
Associated pages:
Smallest breed of cat -- Note:
1. Sarah Hartwell of messybeast.com
Munchkin cats are small too—Males 5-8 lbs, females only slighly smaller. And they have short legs, if show quality. Long legged ones do exist, and they are a bit weightier as well. Singapuras are very cute, and I have seen them at shows. Yeah, they’re very small.