KFC (short for Kentucky Fried Chicken ) is an American fast food restaurant chain headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, that specializes in fried chicken. It is the world’s second-largest restaurant chain (as measured by sales) after McDonald’s, with 22,621 locations globally in 136 countries as of December 2018. The chain is a subsidiary of , a restaurant company that also owns the Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and WingStreet chains.

KFC was one of the first American fast-food chains to expand internationally, opening outlets in Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Jamaica by the mid-1960s. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, it experienced mixed fortunes domestically, as it went through a series of changes in corporate ownership with little or no experience in the restaurant business. In the early-1970s, KFC was sold to the spirits distributor Heublein, which was taken over by the R.J. Reynolds food and tobacco conglomerate; that company sold the chain to PepsiCo. The chain continued to expand overseas, however, and in 1987, it became the first Western restaurant chain to open in China. It has since expanded rapidly in China, which is now the company’s single largest market. PepsiCo spun off its restaurants division as Tricon Global Restaurants, which later changed its name to Yum! Brands.