The Eurasian lynx has a very broad distribution from western Europe through the boreal forests of Russia, and down into central Asia and the Tibetan plateau (Nowell and Jackson 1996, Sunquist and Sunquist 2002). Populations in the southeast of its range (Europe and southwest Asia) are generally small and widely separated, whereas the bulk of its historic range from Scandinavia through Russia and Central Asia is largely intact.

In Europe, it was probably absent from some of the larger islands such as Ireland and Sicily and from countries with few forests. It was also absent from the Iberian Peninsula, where the smaller Iberian lynx Lynx pardinus occurs. Lynx have been extirpated from most of western Europe. In central Europe, they survive only in the Carpathian Mountains and a small area of the south Dinaric Mountains in Greece, Macedonia and Albania, although larger populations persisted in Fennoscandia, the Baltic states, and European Russia. Lynx have been released in several areas of Europe in an effort to reintroduce this elusive predator including in Switzerland, Slovenia, Italy, Czech Republic, Austria, Germany and France (IUCN 2007).