Water Deer Distribution - Native Range

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The primary distribution of water deer in their native Chinese and Korean range. Yellow dashed line represents the estimated historical extent of the species' range, the brown shading showing the range in the early 20th century and the yellow areas the current range. The circles, squares and diamonds show fossil discoveries and imply the species was widespread during pre-history. Map modified from that provided by Stimpson et al. (2021). Note, however, that more recent survey data has extended this range north-east (see below). - Credit: Royal Society Open Science (CC BY 4.0)

China

The sparse fossil data we have suggest that water deer had a historic range much larger than it is today. According to Endi Zhang in his 1993 Ph.D. thesis, ancient Chinese texts suggest water deer were a common animal that roamed over much of China, widespread at latitudes between 28 and 42 degrees N and between a longitude of about 111 degrees E and the western coast of the Pacific. Since then, water deer remains have been found at archaeological sites that have extended their historic range even further. Yen-Jean Chen and colleagues reported, for example, remains from Iron Age sites in Taichung, west-central Taiwan during 2016 and suggested that they became extinct the early 19^th Century, probably in response to human expansion into the wetlands. More recently, palaeontologist Chris Stimpson and his team found water deer jaw fragments among remains in a cave at Tràng An in north-east Vietnam dating to between 13,000 and 16,000 years before the present.

Taking archaeological and contemporary records together, the species could be found from central China in the west, east across to the East China Sea coast, island of Taiwan and the eastern coast of South Korea, south to at least northern Vietnam, and north into north-east China and possibly south-east Mongolia. There are even remains from southern Japan that date to the Middle Pleistocene, about half a million years ago.

The prefecture-city of Baoshan on the banks of the Yangtze. This river valley is one of the few areas in China where water deer still survive. - Credit: Rod Waddington (CC BY-SA 2.0)

In their 2006 paper to Biochemical Genetics, Jie Hu and colleagues present a map showing a considerable reduction in the current distribution compared with its documented historical range, describing the population declines as "drastic". Apparently wiped out of Qingpu and Fengxian in the early 1920s, their range in China has been contracting eastwards over past five or six decades into isolated populations the coastal areas of Jiangsu Province, Poyang Lake areas in Jiangxi Province, and Zhoushan Archipelago of Zhejiang Province. Composed of 1,384 islets, Zhoushan being the largest, the Zhoushan Islands group is located just outside the Hangzhou Bay in the East China Sea. The earliest record of water deer in the Zhoushan Archipelago of which I'm aware is a reference in The Annals of Dinghai County, published in 1923.

While poaching remains a threat to the species' continued survival, there has been some good news. A recent project to reintroduce water deer to Shanghai has been largely successful, while several photos and videos of water deer, including a fawn, collected using trailcams set in Jilin Baishan Musk Deer National Nature Reserve, north-east China, during 2018 represent the first confirmed report of deer in the province since 1949.

A composite map showing the current distribution status of water deer in Northeast China and surrounding areas. This map is reproduced from Li et al. (2023). - Credit: Zongzhi Li et al. (2023) / Scientific Reports (CC BY 4.0)

Most texts show the remaining population in China as having a southern boundary of roughly Fujian and Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, stretching north into Jiangsu and Anhui provinces, west as far as Hubei and Hunan provinces, and along the eastern Yangtze basin, with Poyang Lake being a principal population. In their Chinese text on the changes to plants and animals in China through recent history, published in 2006, Huanran and Rongsheng Wen show the species as being widely distributed throughout Guangxi in the south, but only sporadically present in the northern part of Guangdong Province. Min Chen and her colleagues, in their 2009 paper to Wetland Science, noted that the Yangcheng coastal wetland deer consist of three isolated populations concentrated in two areas: one in Sheyang County, the centre being the Yancheng Reserve spreading into the surrounding reed beds; the second in Dafeng County, with the core in the Deer Reserve; and the third in the wasteland surrounding the Dafeng Reserve. A more recent analysis of survey data, including new transects and camera trapping suggests some recolonisation of north-eastern areas, where they were thought to have been absent since the 1950s. The data, collected by a team at the Northeast Forestry University in Harbin, led by Zongzhi Li, was published in Scientific Reports during 2023 and records water deer in Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Liaoning provinces.

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Korean Peninsula

In Korea, as in China, the species' distribution may have been substantially reduced through poaching and habitat destruction, particularly in the North, though little information is available. In their 2015 IUCN Red List review, Richard Harris and Will Duckworth describe water deer as "relatively widespread" in South Korea, particularly along the west coast, and present in the lower-lying parts of North Korea – though they note that assessing true status is complicated by repeated releases of captive-bred stock. The species appears absent from the off-shore islands of Ulleung-do, Dok-do, and Jeju-do.

In South Korea, Baek-Jun Kim and colleagues, writing in Landscape Ecology and Engineering in 2011, found water deer occurring across most of the country except Seoul and Jeju Province. They were occasionally observed in, but tended to avoid, Kyunggi Province – one of the most intensively developed areas, lying close to Seoul.

A significant and often overlooked factor is the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the 250 km (160 mile) long, 4 km (2.5 mile) wide strip of heavily militarised land dividing the peninsula, bordered on either side by impenetrable fencing. Kim Seung-ho, Director of the DMZ Ecology Institute, told me in September 2025 that the dense wire fencing makes it "impossible for large mammals to move." While he acknowledged that water deer's swimming ability means one or two individuals might find a way around the fences, he considered the probability very low. As a result, Seung-ho regards the peninsula as supporting three effectively isolated populations: one in South Korea; one within the DMZ itself, unable to pass into either North or South; and one in North Korea, which presumably mingles with deer from China and/or Russia.

Artist's impression of a Chinese water deer looking out over a native landscape of paddy fields near a Chinese village. - Credit: Rachel Dubber

In summary, the species is native to central China's eastern Yangtze Valley, parts of eastern China, the Zhoushan Islands off Zhejiang Province, South Korea, and North Korea – throughout the wetlands and forests of the CCZ and the DMZ dividing the two countries. In North Korea, water deer may still inhabit the Taebak and Nagrim mountains, Kangwon Province, and adjacent South Hamgyong Province; in South Korea the species is more widely distributed, occurring in all provinces except Seoul and Jeju. In recent years the population appears to have expanded from North Korea into south-west Russia, potentially also repopulating parts of Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces.