Turkish Van

The Turkish Van is a semi-long-haired, standardised breed of domestic cat, which was developed in the United Kingdom from a selection of cats obtained from various cities of modern Turkey, especially southeast Turkey. The breed is rare, is one of the larger breeds, and is distinguished by the Van pattern (named after the breed), where the colour is restricted to the head and the tail, and the rest of the cat is white; this is due to the expression of the piebald white spotting gene, a type of partial leucism. A Turkish Van may have blue or amber eyes, or be odd-eyed (having one eye of each colour). The breed was first recognised as such by a breeder/fancier organisation, the UK-based Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (GCCF), in 1969, under the name Turkish cat. It was later renamed Turkish Van to better distinguish it from the Turkish Angora breed. The Turkish Van has been claimed to be descended from (and is often confused with) the landrace of usually all-white Van cats, mostly found near Lake Van, though one of the two original breeders' own writings indicate clearly that none of the breed's foundation cats came from the Van area. Breed standards Breed standards allow for one or more body spots as long as there is no more than 20% colour and the cat does not give the appearance of a bicolour. A few random spots are acceptable, but they should not detract from the pattern. The rest of the cat is white. Although red tabby and white is the classic Van colour, the colour on a Van's head and tail can be one of the following: red, cream, black, blue, red tabby, cream tabby, brown tabby, blue tabby, tortoiseshell, dilute tortoiseshell (also known as blue-cream), brown-patched tabby, blue-patched tabby, and any other colour not showing evidence of crossbreeding with the point-coloured breeds (Siamese, Himalayan, etc.). Not all registries recognise all of these colour variations.