How is Pluto connected to the Kuiper belt?

Pluto is connected to the Kuiper belt as one of its largest known members. Following the discovery of other icy bodies in the region beyond Neptune, astronomers recognized that Pluto shares many characteristics with these Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) rather than the major planets.12

This classification shift occurred because Pluto is essentially a large KBO—a remnant from the formation of the outer solar system—that happens to have been discovered decades before the belt itself was identified. Due to its size and location within this population of icy bodies, the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet in 2006.1

Like other objects in the belt, Pluto orbits the Sun at a great distance, though its specific path is characterized by a stabilizing 3:2 orbital resonance with Neptune, which prevents the two bodies from colliding.23