Just how long was Mufasa king before the events of tlk1?

[Elton John]

Mufasa and Sarabi always seemed middle aged to me, if that makes any sense. I'm also going to assume they were married quite a while before the events of tlk1 just that they only managed to concieve a child lion years after.

I'm also going to assume that scar and mufasas parents died of old age and / or natural causes.

My guess with all this info is that he has been king for 2-5 lion years.

[Aelwen]

it depends on whether TLk lions age like humans or like real lions. I suppose Mufasa was 6-7 years old. And he was king 3-4? maybe they had cubs before but they died.

[TheLionPrince]

There's no way of knowing for sure. The lions don't record or measure time in years and dates as we humans do (albeit one slight mention of minutes as said by Nala) and there's no context of what happened before the first film for us to judge from. May I remind others that "The Tale of Two Brothers" from The Lion King: Six New Adventures is a non-canon story. The only thing we guess is to use real lion facts and guess from there. Generally, lionesses are able to give birth to cubs around the age of four years and male lions reach full maturity at three years. So, personally, I would range Mufasa and Sarabi's ages around 3–5 years so to me, they are not that quite old. How long was he king before the start of The Lion King is anyone's guess.

[Squeely]

Since he seems pretty experienced, I'd think Mufasa would have held the throne for at least a couple years prior to the events of TLK, if not a little more. Assuming that none of the pride's adult lionesses were sired by him, it could stand to reason that Mufasa and Sarabi would wait until they were familiar enough with ruling and the land was plentiful enough, before attempting to have cubs.

[moonsugar33]

Mufasa is a very, very big lion. Sarabi's face is nowhere near as young as adult Nala's. I think if they'd lived a little longer, they would have seen grandcubs.

As for how long Mufasa had actually been king- this is something I'd consult extended lore on!