Where Do Wolves Live? Wolf Range in North America and Europe

What habitat do wolves live in?

The gray wolf once had one of the largest natural ranges of any land mammal apart from humans. It is not tied to one type of habitat. Wolves live in:

• Forests, from the boreal forests of Canada and Russia to the beech and oak woods of Europe.
• Arctic tundra, where white Arctic wolves hunt muskoxen and caribou.
• Grasslands and steppes, from the North American prairies (in the past) to the steppes of Central Asia.
• Mountains, including the Rockies, the Alps, the Carpathians and the Himalayas.
• Deserts and semi-deserts, in the Middle East, Central Asia and northwestern Mexico.
• Farmland edges, especially in Europe, where wolves now live close to villages and even military training areas.

What wolves need is not a particular landscape but enough deer, elk, moose, caribou, wild boar or other prey, plus some protection from human killing. To see how their food changes from region to region, read what do wolves eat?

Where do wolves live in North America?

Canada has the largest wolf population in North America, roughly 52,000–60,000 wolves living in most of their historical range. Alaska has about 7,000–11,000 wolves spread over most of the state.

In the contiguous United States, wolves were almost wiped out by the mid-20th century; only a small population survived in northeastern Minnesota. Today they live in several regions:

Wolves have also returned to some places on their own. A young radio-collared wolf called OR-7 left northeastern Oregon in 2011 and wandered more than 1,600 km (1,000 mi) into California, becoming the first wild wolf confirmed there since 1924.

The Yellowstone wolf reintroduction

The last wolves in Yellowstone National Park were killed in the 1920s. After decades of debate, wolves captured in Canada were released into Yellowstone in 1995 and 1996, while more were released in central Idaho at the same time. The first wolves were held in acclimation pens in the Lamar Valley before being set free.

The reintroduction worked. Wolves spread through the park and the surrounding region, and the northern Rocky Mountains now hold thousands of wolves. Inside Yellowstone, counts in recent years have ranged from roughly 90 to about 125 wolves in around 8 to 11 packs, depending on the year. The park’s Lamar Valley has become one of the best places in the world to watch wild wolves.

Where do wolves live in Europe?

Europe has at least 21,500 wolves, not counting Russia and Belarus. The biggest populations live in the Balkans, the Carpathian Mountains, Italy, the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), Poland and the Baltic states, with others in Finland, Sweden and Norway.

The most surprising change is the return of wolves to the crowded lowlands of Western and Central Europe:

• Germany. Wolves from western Poland raised pups in Lusatia, Saxony, in 2000, the first known litter in Germany for well over a century. By 2024/25, Germany had about 220 packs.
• France. Wolves from Italy crossed the Alps into Mercantour National Park in 1992. France now has roughly 1,000 wolves.
• The Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark. Wolves arrived in the 2010s, and all three countries now have resident wolves that have raised pups.
• Switzerland and Austria. Wolves returned from Italy, and both countries now have packs.

The full story, with country-by-country numbers, is in our guide to wolves in Europe. Wolves are still absent from Britain and Ireland, where they were wiped out centuries ago.

Where do wolves live in Asia?

Asia holds a large share of the world’s wolves. Russia has tens of thousands, and big populations also live in Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China and other parts of Central Asia. Smaller wolves live in Turkey, Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, Israel and the Indian subcontinent, where the Indian wolf hunts blackbuck and other prey on dry grasslands. The Himalayan wolf lives on the high plateaus of Tibet and the Himalayas.

Wolves are extinct in Japan, where the last known Honshu wolf died in 1905.

Where did wolves disappear from?

Persecution with bounties, poison and organized hunts reduced the wolf’s range to about one-third of its historical size. Wolves vanished from the British Isles, Japan, most of Western and Central Europe, almost all of the contiguous United States and most of Mexico.

Since the 1970s, legal protection, larger deer and wild boar populations and fewer people living in the countryside have allowed wolves to return to many of these places. Worldwide, there are now roughly 200,000–250,000 wild gray wolves, and the species is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.

How much space does a wolf pack need?

Each wolf pack defends its own territory. Where prey is plentiful, a territory can be as small as about 33 km² (13 sq mi), while in parts of Alaska it can be more than 6,000 km² (2,300 sq mi). Young wolves leave home to look for empty territories, sometimes traveling hundreds of kilometers, which is how wolves spread back into countries where they had been missing for a century or more. Learn more in how many wolves are in a pack?

Living close to people brings conflicts, mainly over livestock. Attacks on people are very rare; see are wolves dangerous? for the evidence.