This species is restricted to Southern Africa, south of the Cunene and Zambezi Rivers. It is distributed widely in Namibia, except where replaced by Xerus princeps in the northwest, but absent from the coastal areas and in parts of the southwest and northeast. In Botswana, confined to the semi-desert Kalahari associations. In South Africa, they occur mainly in the central regions, being widely distributed in the North West Province, Free State, the Northern Cape (the northern and north-eastern parts of the province), and southwards to the Graaff Reinet District in Eastern Cape, which marks their most southerly limits of distribution (Skinner and Smithers 1990). They also occur in western Lesotho (Lynch 1994).