Cattle herds in the December livestock survey
- Eurostat dataset
- apro_mt_lscatl
- Reference period
- 2025
- Unit of measure
- thousand head
Key estimates
- EU aggregate (2025): 71 583 thousand head.
- Highest value: European Union (EU6-1958, EU9-1973, EU10-1981, EU12-1986, EU15-1995, EU25-2004, EU27-2007, EU28-2013, EU27-2020) at 71 583 thousand head; lowest: Malta at 13.1 thousand head.
- Cross-country mean 4 596 thousand head, standard deviation 12 066, coefficient of variation 262.5% across 36 reporting countries.
- Aggregate change 2014→2025: -4.4% on a constant panel of 33 countries.
Where are Europe's cattle herds concentrated, and are they shrinking? Eurostat dataset apro_mt_lscatl reports cattle herds in the December livestock survey for 36 reporting countries, with 2025 as the most recent period carrying broad coverage. The European aggregate stands at 71 583 thousand head. Cattle numbers link directly to agricultural emissions, land use and rural income structures.
The five highest values in 2025 are recorded by European Union (EU6-1958, EU9-1973, EU10-1981, EU12-1986, EU15-1995, EU25-2004, EU27-2007, EU28-2013, EU27-2020) (71 583), Türkiye (17 709), France (16 237), Germany (10 420), Spain (6 300), all expressed in thousand head. At the opposite end of the distribution sit Malta (13.1), Montenegro (68.5), Iceland (77.0), Cyprus (84.5), North Macedonia (142.7). The ratio between the highest and the lowest observation is 5481.10, while the median country reports 1 114 thousand head against a mean of 4 596 thousand head.
Dispersion is wide: the standard deviation across countries is 12 066 thousand head, giving a coefficient of variation of 262.5%. The mean sits above the median, which indicates that the distribution is pulled by the upper tail rather than being symmetric. Any European average quoted for this indicator therefore describes a synthetic country that few Member States resemble.
Between 2014 and 2025 the summed value across the 33 countries reporting in both periods moved by -4.4%. The largest relative increases are observed in Cyprus (+41.9%), Türkiye (+24.3%), Hungary (+10.1%); the largest decreases, or the smallest increases, in Albania (-45.0%), North Macedonia (-41.0%), Montenegro (-27.1%). Because the panel is held constant, this change is not an artefact of countries entering or leaving the sample.
This indicator has no normatively preferred direction; its analytical value lies in the structure of the distribution and in how national positions move relative to each other over time. The estimates above are reproducible: the dataset identifier, filter dimensions and reference period are stated in the methodological note, and the series can be re-downloaded from the Eurostat dissemination API at any time.
Methodological note
Source: Eurostat, dataset apro_mt_lscatl ('Bovine population'), extracted from the Eurostat dissemination API (JSON-stat 2.0) on the dataset update of 2026-07-15. Filter dimensions: month=M11_M12; animals=A2000; unit=THS_HD. Unit of measure: thousand head. Reference period: 2025. Geographic perimeter: national reporting units with two-character geo codes (36 countries with a non-missing observation); European and euro-area aggregates are excluded from the cross-country statistics and reported separately. Descriptive statistics (mean, median, population standard deviation, coefficient of variation) are computed unweighted over reporting countries. Change over time is computed on a constant panel: only countries with a non-missing observation in both the base and the reference period enter the calculation, which removes composition effects but may differ from the officially published aggregate. No imputation, seasonal adjustment or re-scaling has been applied beyond what Eurostat performs at source. Flagged provisional and estimated observations are retained as published.
Source data
The underlying series can be inspected and re-downloaded from the Eurostat data browser.