Which is the largest bear on earth?

    

    The polar bear.

It is a close call, but the polar bear is generally considered the largest bear on Earth. A close second is the brown bear, specifically the Kodiak bear. The Kodiak is a subspecies of the brown bear native to Alaska.

The consensus among experts is that the polar bear is the largest, but some believe the Kodiak bear to be larger. Part of the dissension comes from the vagueness of the word "largest." The answer really depends on how "largest" is defined - Heaviest? Longest? Largest ever recorded?

The following data, taken from Gary Brown's Great Bear Almanac (New York, 1993), compares the average measurements of the polar and brown bear.

	Polar Bear	Brown Bear
Average Weight of Mature Male	900-1,500 pounds	500-900 pounds
Heaviest Recorded	2,210 pounds	2,500+ pounds
Average Length of Mature Male	8-8.4 feet	>7-10 feet

Source: The Great Bear Almanac by Gary Brown