The European ground squirrel is native to central and southeastern Europe where its range is divided by the Carpathian Mountains. Its range includes land at altitudes of up to in southern Ukraine, Asia Minor, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, North Macedonia and north as far as Poland. It has become locally extinct in Germany and Poland but was reintroduced successfully into the wild in Poland in 2005. Some of the animals were sourced from the Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport.