Quick answer
Chimpanzees live in African tropical forest and wooded savanna from Senegal to western Tanzania — not south of the Congo River (bonobos) and not in Asia. The species is Endangered; western chimpanzees are Critically Endangered. Figures checked 13 August 2026.
Which countries, which subspecies?
Western (P. t. verus) in Upper Guinea forests and some savanna. Nigeria–Cameroon (ellioti) on that highland border. Central (troglodytes) in the Congo Basin. Eastern (schweinfurthii) through DRC, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and western Tanzania. None of that is “tropical forest” as a single unnamed blob.
What microhabitats do they use?
Fruiting groves, nesting trees (fresh night nests), and savanna woodland in Senegal and Mali where forest is thin. Edge clearings can look convenient and still be snare fields. Western chimps persist mostly outside parks — a conservation-geography problem, not a suburban opportunity.
How do people shrink the map?
Logging, mining, cocoa and oil-palm, and hunting access along new roads. Western chimps lost about 20% of range in eight years. This is not a “farms create opportunity” story. Fragmentation isolates communities and erases tool cultures with them.
What does Endangered geography require?
Linked forest beats a single fenced postcard. Watch from a distance; never feed. Western CR means Guinea and Liberia forest is the emergency, even if Gombe still has researchers.
Why fruiting forest is the range
Fruit-first omnivores cannot commute across a logging grid. WARN’s country programmes fund partner veterinary and rescue work in-range — not an orangutan appeal.
Sources
Chimpanzee FAQs
Where do chimpanzees live?
Tropical forest and wooded savanna across western and central Africa — Senegal to western Tanzania and Uganda, depending on subspecies. They do not live south of the Congo River; that is bonobo country. There is no Asian chimpanzee. IUCN lists the species Endangered; western chimps are Critically Endangered.
Do chimpanzees and bonobos share a range?
No. The Congo River is the split. Chimpanzees occupy the north and west; bonobos only the DRC south of the river. A Gombe or Kibale visit is not a Salonga visit. Mixing them is the most common map error after “African orangutan.”
Where do western chimpanzees still live?
Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Senegal and Sierra Leone. They are extirpated in Benin, Burkina Faso and Togo. Most remaining western chimps live outside formal parks — which is why CR is not a postcard-park problem only.
What actually protects chimpanzee range?
Forest that stays forest, and hunting control. World Animal Rescue Network funds partner veterinary and rescue work via country programmes — not an orangutan appeal.
Who this page is for.This page is native range and habitat, not a sighting hotline.
How does fission–fusion use that map?
Parties split toward scattered fruit and rejoin. Lose corridors and those parties cannot meet without crossing guns and farms. Night nests mark used home ranges.