They are called the King of the Jungle because generally they are the top predator.  They will eat anything and most animals fear them.  That is basically the reason why.  They are the most fierce animal in the jungle.

MoblinGardens : Lions do not live in the jungle. They live on the savannah. It's actually something that's bothered me since I was a child. The misunderstanding probably has something to do with that annoying song that goes

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight....

I could never stand that song.

It just has a nice ring to it that;s all, I imagine anaconda's and venomous and giant snakes are all the biggest threats in the jungle , I think lion's are intimidated by snakes because some of them can spit venom   

While the term "Jungle" is definitely wrong, it still holds its value. Still, they are considered the "King" because, as Moblin said, they are at the top of the food chain. Everything fears the Lion, even us humans, though we don't show it some times.

Traduweise : I'm pretty sure the song came after the title, but I too can't stand that song.

Lions are called king of the jungle because they are the fiercest animals in the jungles that they are in  and they are at the top of there food chain system air go the top predator.

well don't lions fear the crocodiles?

Tigers should be called the king of the jungle. They actually live in rainforests.

hellno163 : If I were to make a guess, probably not. I don't think they fear a lot of things.



Traduweise : Oh wow, I can't believe I actually said that. I was running on auto-pilot. I should have clued in that they don't live in the jungle haha XD

Divine Aurora : But the thing about that is, again, lions do not even live in the Jungle.

MegaRevolution1 : If anything, the hippos are the ones that don't get messed with. They should be king of the Savannah. It is pretty rare for anything to successfully attack a hippo and live. Hippos are the cause of more human deaths than any African animal. When a crocodile is killed by something that is not another crocodile, it is most often the hippo. Hippos are the only animal that has virtually no fear or nervousness of humans. 

rcarter2 : That is actually a really good point about the hippo. They don't seem very dangerous but sure enough they are. You seriously don't want to mess with one. I wonder if there has been any eye witnesses of a hippo fighting a lion. Then we will get to know who the real king should be XD

rcarter2 : Yeah, despite what I last said, I actually completely agree. But if you really think about it, people want something more "ferocious" looking, which is why they would rather a scarred up Lion than a scarred up Hippo.
Also, yeah, I recall the statistics about deaths by hippopotamus'. While it's always a tragedy, except for when it's not, I honestly have to laugh. Why? Who would think that something with a name like hippopotamus would be so deadly?

Lions certainly fear hippos. Other animals they fear include elephants, driver ants, water buffalo, black and white rhinocerous, even giraffes. Heck, even hyenas can and will kill lions on occasion.

MegaRevolution1 : Haha. This looks plenty ferocious to me


MoblinGardens : Here is a pretty cool video. It makes me laugh because there is a whole lion pride attacking one hippo, and the hippo doesn't even seem to feel it. Just sitting there for a while until it is is like "This is bull crap! I don't have to put up with this! You lions are irritating. I'm going home!" And the lions say "Alright. We give up. We're leaving".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vl9F4NODTo

rcarter2 : That was a pretty good video. It looked as if it didn't even care, and when it swung it's head around, the lions jumped haha.

I actually got into a debate with someone about that. I think there was a thread asking your favourite animal, someone said lion because its the king of the jungle, and I replied saying it wasnt, which he didnt accept, because there is ONE species that lives in a forest in India.

There are a ton of interesting things about lions on the programme QI, sucha s the fact that not only do lions not live in the jungle, they rarely sleep at night either. So that song is 2 for 2.
You can see a text breakdown here with some extra details, like the forest in india:


http://qi.com/television/series-j/jungles/lions

or if youre too lazy to read heres the actual episode:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk-TfLYihas


at 3:15 it talks about the origins of that crappy lion sleeps tonight song, and at 5:35 it blasts about these myths about lions, so you can skip the rest.
Incidentally, qi stands for quite interesting, as well as being the opposite of iq, which I hope most of you picked up on.
good show.

Being from South Africa (argh! I revealed my base of operations ;p) I can surely confirm that almost all lions (as most of you know and have said already) do not live in the jungle.  Most of them are located in sub-Saharan Africa in the savanna and grasslands.  Their color (and especially the male's mane) is a perfect camouflage in long, dry grass.  There are even some that live in desert areas, specifically in the Kalahari desert which is located in the Northern area of South Africa / Southern and mid Botswana (circled in blue).  Check out this map of known locations of wild lions in Africa:





That's roughly 1400 km (875 miles) north from where I live.
However, there is a small amount of subspecies of lion called Panthera leo persica that inhabits the Gir Forest in India.  Apparently they are a bit smaller than the African lions and they have a darker mane.  See pictures below:

Asian Lion




Gir Forest




Although Lions do not fear many things, they are very weary of things mentioned like Hippo's, Elephants and crocodiles.  They are not stupid and will single out and patiently wait for the smaller ones to get separated before they will attack, that is if they are hungry enough, or they have this instinct to sniff out the weaker ones in the bunch.  
A while ago we visited the Johannesburg zoo and there's a beautiful pride of white lions kept there that I have taken pictures of which I might post here a bit later.  The best place of course to see lions is in their natural habitat.

Technically a tiger, as mentioned before, should be called the king of the jungle, since it's bigger than a lion and their natural habitat is in fact in the jungle.

A lions roar is something nothing else really has. A lion is known as the king of the jungle because in the jungle nothing messes with a lion. It is just the king and all the animals respect it, at least in humans eyes.

Ya that is kinda weird now that i think about it. I never really though about it before but ya lions don't live in the jungle.