Where are apples originally from?

Kazakhstan is thought to be one of the places that the apple originated, particularly the wild ancestor of domesticated apples, "Malus sieversii." It is known in its native Kazakhstan as "alma" (“apple”). The region where it is thought to originate is called Almaty: "rich with apple." Almaty is the largest city in Kazakhstan and formerly its capital (the region surrounding Almaty is home to forests of M. sieversii). The Soviet-era name, Alma-Ata, is Kazakh for "Father of Apples." Alma is also "apple" in other Turkic languages, as well as in Hungarian. These apples traveled the Silk Road, expanding their range and hybridizing readily.

M. sieversii was shown by DNA analysis in 2010 to be the primary ancestor of most cultivars of the domesticated apple. It was first described (as Pyrus sieversii) in 1833 by Carl Friedrich von Ledebour, a German naturalist who saw them growing in the Altai Mountains. It is a deciduous tree, very similar in appearance to the domestic apple. Its fruit is the largest of any species of Malus (except pumila), up to 7 cm in diameter, equal in size to many modern apple cultivars. Unlike domesticated varieties, its leaves go red in autumn.This tree is still found wild in the mountains of Central Asia, in southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Xinjiang in China. The species is now considered vulnerable to extinction.

There are 7500 apple varieties grown world wide. Apples are members of the rose family.