A howdah or houdah (Hindi: हौदा, romanized: haudā, derived from the Arabic هودج hawdaj which means 'bed carried by a camel') also known as hathi howdah (हाथी हौदा hāthī haudā), is a carriage which is positioned on the back of an elephant, or occasionally some other animal such as a camel, used most often in the past to carry wealthy people during progresses or processions, hunting or in warfare.

Today, howdahs are used mainly for tourist or commercial purposes in South East Asia and are the subject of controversy as animal rights groups and organizations, such as Millennium Elephant Foundation, openly criticize their use, citing evidence that howdahs can cause permanent damage to an elephant's spine, lungs, and other organs and can significantly shorten the animal's life.

[1] A passage from Roman historian Curtius describes the lifestyles of ancient Indian kings during the "Second urbanisation" (c. 600 – c. 200 BCE) who rode on chariot mounted on elephants or howdahs when going on distant expeditions.

The American author Herman Melville in Chapter 42 ("The Whiteness of the Whale") of Moby Dick (1851), writes "To the native Indian of Peru, the continual site of the snow-howdahed Andes conveys naught of dread, except, perhaps, in the more fancy of the eternal frosted desolateness reigning at such vast altitudes, and the natural conceit of what a fearfulness it would be to lose oneself in such inhuman solitudes."

It also appears in Chapter 11 of Jules Vernes' classic adventure novel Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), in which we are told "The Parsee, who was an accomplished elephant driver, covered his back with a sort of saddle-cloth, and attached to each of his flanks some curiously uncomfortable howdahs.” It is mentioned in the first chapter of Ben-Hur: “Exactly at noon the dromedary, of its own will, stopped, and uttered the cry or moan, peculiarly piteous, by which its kind always protest against an overload, and sometimes crave attention and rest.

He threw the curtains of the houdah up, looked at the sun, surveyed the country on every side long and carefully, as if to identify an appointed place.” Tolkien wrote in The Lord of the Rings of the Mûmakil (Elephants) of Harad with howdahs on their backs.