British Longhair

The British Longhair is the semi-longhaired variant of the beloved British Shorthair. These cats inherit all the wonderful traits of their shorthair cousins - the round face, stocky build, and gentle personality - but with a beautifully flowing coat that gives them a regal, teddy-bear appearance.

British Longhairs are calm, laid-back, and wonderfully affectionate. Their plush coat requires regular grooming but rewards owners with its silky softness and stunning visual appeal. They are ideal for families seeking a gentle, elegant companion.

The British Longhair traces its history back nearly 2,000 years, beginning when Roman legions brought domestic cats to the British Isles. These cats settled onto farms and into barns across Britain, adapting over generations to the cold, damp climate and developing the cobby build and easygoing nature that still define the breed today. The modern British Longhair as we now recognize it emerged in the 20th century, when breeders introduced Persian bloodlines to strengthen the British gene pool — producing kittens that kept the stocky body of their British ancestors but inherited the Persian's luxurious semi-long coat. For decades these long-coated cats were treated as an off-shoot rather than a breed in their own right. That changed in 2009, when TICA formally recognized the British Longhair as an independent pedigreed breed, giving it the international name it carries today. The British Longhair is now celebrated worldwide for combining the calm, steady temperament of a working British cat with the plush, elegant coat of its Persian heritage.

The British Longhair has one of the most instantly recognizable looks of any pedigreed cat — a round face, a dense silky coat, and a quietly powerful body shape that together feel both regal and approachable. The British Longhair's semi-long coat is two to three times the length of a typical shorthaired cat's, falling in soft layers that catch the light without the flowing volume of a Persian. Its face is round and full, with prominent jowls (sometimes called "chubby cheeks") that are especially pronounced in adult male British Longhairs, and the eyes are large, round, and richly colored — typically copper-orange in Blue Longhairs and vivid green in Silver Shaded and Golden Shaded varieties. The body is unmistakably cobby: short legs, a stocky frame, heavy bone, and dense muscle, giving the British Longhair its trademark "plush teddy bear" silhouette. One critical point to note: a true British Longhair always retains a normal, well-defined muzzle — never the flat, pushed-in face of a Persian, and never the respiratory problems that come with that flat face.

Popular British Longhair colors:

• Blue Longhair (the classic British blue in a long-coat form)

• Silver Shaded British Longhair

• Golden Shaded British Longhair

• Cream British Longhair

• Blue & White Longhair

• Blue Golden Shaded British Longhair