The steppe eagle tends to breeds in open dry country, within the characteristic habitat it is named after: the steppe. In Kazakhstan, it is known to occur in drier parts of the steppe than some other raptors like harriers, in both upland and lowland steppe, and general avoid utilizing agricultural land such as arables and most other human-fragmented areas (but are somewhat tolerant of nesting near roads). Associated habitats are frequented when breeding such as flat plains, arid grassland, semi-desert and even desert edge. Most members of the species breed at lower levels but largely in eastern part of the range also will nest in poorly vegetated dry rocky hillsides such as granite massifs and upland valleys, though generally avoid truly mountainous areas. Wintering steppe eagles often occur much more frequently in human-modified areas in order to access easy foods. These include landfills and livestock carcass dumps, these being used frequently everywhere from Arabia to India. More natural habitats used most often by wintering steppe eagles tend to various wetlands or other waterways where they are available. In winter, mostly savanna and grasslands are the predominant habitat used in Africa, also sometimes dry woodland. Study in Botswana indicated that wintering steppe eagles there appeared to be indifferent to land use changes by humans. In Zambia and Malawi, it was found that the steppe eagle was only frequent in high-elevation plateau areas from metres above sea level. Use of plateaus was also frequent in Zimbabwe, often where open savanna woods of Acacia stand as well as the use of cultivated areas such as wheat stubble fields by eagles. Iraqi wintering steppe eagles often used dump sites as well as deserts and semi-arid areas, with more steppe, other grassland and mountain slopes used in northern Iraq in winter. In Armenia steppe eagles are apparently frequent in old fields and orchards. In south Asia they usually use open country and often frequents large lakes and other wetlands near arid areas but may accept, or even prefer, more heavily wooded areas (however the first records from peninsular Malaysia seem to be from open areas created by deforestation). Although usually a breeder of lowlands, it has been known to live at elevations of up to and locally to in mountains, on passage can occur to over sometimes even to , as was recorded on Mount Everest. Compared to other Palearctic migrating eagles, the steppe eagle seems to perhaps be slightly more tolerant of a wider range of climatic conditions, including rather humid conditions in India provided subsistence is available as well as up to of snow cover in Kazakhstan (living off of urban pests).