Van Cat

 

The  Van cat  is a distinctive landrace of domestic cat, found mainly in the Lake Van region of eastern Turkey. It is relatively large, has a chalky white coat often with ruddy coloration on the head and hindquarters, and has blue or amber eyes or is odd-eyed (having one eye of each colour)

The naturally occurring Van cat type popularly believed to be the basis of the Turkish Van breed, internationally selectively bred to consistently produce the head-and-tail colouring pattern on the white, as standardised and recognised by many cat fancier organisations. However, one of the breed founders' own writings indicate that none of the original cats used to found the formal breed came from the Lake Van area, but other parts of Turkey.The capitalised and run-together term "Turkish Vankedisi" is confusingly used by some organisations as a name for all-white specimens of the formal Turkish Van breed.