Elephant cognition is animal cognition as present in elephants. Most contemporary ethologists view the elephant as one of the world's most intelligent animals. Elephants manifest a wide variety of behaviors, including those associated with grief, learning, mimicry, playing, altruism, tool use, compassion, cooperation, self-awareness, memory, and communication. They can also exhibit negative qualities such as revenge towards those perceived to have harmed them or their families. Duncan McNair, a lawyer and founder of conservation charity Save The Asian Elephants, told Newsweek that ... "although gentle creatures, elephants can be dangerous and deadly".

Evidence suggests elephants may understand pointing, the ability to nonverbally communicate an object by extending their multi-purpose trunks.

An elephant brain weighs around 5 kg (11 lb), which is about four times the size of a human brain and the heaviest of any terrestrial animal. It has about 257 billion neurons, which is about three times the number of neurons as a human brain. However, the cerebral cortex, which is the major center of cognition, has only about one-third of the number of neurons as a human's cerebral cortex. While elephant brains look similar to those of humans and other mammals and has the same functional areas, there are certain unique structural differences.

The intelligence of elephants is described as on par with cetaceans and various primates. Due to its higher cognitive intelligence and presence of family ties, researchers and wildlife experts argue that it is morally wrong for humans to kill them. Aristotle described the elephant as "the animal that surpasses all others in wit and mind."

The living species of elephant (both Asian and African) have a very large and highly complex neocortex, a trait also shared by humans, apes and certain dolphin species.

Asian elephants have the greatest volume of cerebral cortex available for cognitive processing of all existing land animals. It exceeds that of any primate species, with one study suggesting elephants be placed in the category of great apes in terms of cognitive abilities for tool use and tool making.

The elephant brain exhibits a gyral pattern more complex and with more numerous convolutions, or brain folds, than that of humans, other primates, or carnivores, but less complex than that of cetaceans. Elephants are believed to rank equal with dolphins in terms of problem-solving abilities, and many scientists tend to rank elephant intelligence at the same level as cetaceans; a 2011 article published by ABC Science suggests that, "elephants [are as] smart as chimps, [and] dolphins".

Elephants also have a very large and highly convoluted hippocampus, a brain structure in the limbic system that is much bigger than that of any human, primate or cetacean. The hippocampus of an elephant takes up about 0.7% of the central structures of the brain, comparable to 0.5% for humans and with 0.1% in Risso's dolphins and 0.05% in bottlenose dolphins.