USA Ring-necked Pheasant Range Map
Ring-necked pheasant range across the agricultural heartland of the United States — introduced from Asia in the late 1800s and now the most popular upland game bird.
What this map shows
The shaded green area is the species' primary contiguous range as mapped by the USGS Gap Analysis Project in 2001. This represents the areas where populations are established, breeding, and ecologically meaningful — not individual sightings or scattered isolated populations.
An unshaded state doesn't mean the species is absent — it only means the species isn't part of the contiguous breeding range at the scale USGS mapped. Small, localized, or recently-reintroduced populations may exist in unshaded areas.
Important: data is from 2001
This is the best publicly-available research-grade range data for the species, but it was compiled from observations collected between roughly 1990 and 2001 and published by USGS in 2011. Many species have expanded significantly since then.
Examples: black bears have recolonized much of the Midwest and South, elk have been reintroduced in Kentucky, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Missouri, gray wolves have expanded substantially in the Northern Rockies and Western Great Lakes, and wild turkeys have pushed into the northern plains. For current distribution, always check your state wildlife agency.
Hunting notes
Top states include South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, and Minnesota. Pheasant populations track CRP acreage and small-grain agriculture. South Dakota alone hosts more than a million pheasant hunter-days per year.