Caribou live across the northern regions of North America — Alaska, much of Canada, and parts of Greenland — in Arctic tundra, boreal forest (taiga), and northern mountain ranges. The same species, called reindeer in Europe and Asia, also lives across Scandinavia, Russia, and several Arctic islands. No other deer on Earth lives as far north, and the caribou’s whole body, from its hollow-haired coat to its snow-shoveling hooves, is built for these cold landscapes.
Caribou and reindeer are one species, Rangifer tarandus, wearing two names. In North America we say caribou; in Europe and Asia the animal is a reindeer. Since the difference is mostly geography, a map of where caribou live is really a map of the entire species’ range — a broad band circling the top of the world.
Let’s tour that range, starting in North America.
Caribou in North America
Alaska
Alaska is home to some of the largest caribou herds in the world. Herds like the Western Arctic and Porcupine herds roam enormous ranges across the tundra of northern and western Alaska, moving between calving grounds on the coastal plain and wintering areas farther inland. Herd sizes rise and fall dramatically over the decades, but Alaska’s caribou still number in the hundreds of thousands overall.
Canada
Canada holds the heart of the caribou’s North American range, and its caribou are usually grouped into several broad types:
- Barren-ground caribou live on the open tundra of the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and northern parts of the provinces. These are the herds famous for epic seasonal migrations between tundra calving grounds and forested winter ranges.
- Woodland caribou live year-round in the boreal forest, from British Columbia and the Rockies east toward Labrador. They tend to live in smaller, more scattered groups and migrate far less.
- Peary caribou are small, pale caribou of Canada’s High Arctic islands, hardy specialists of one of the harshest environments any deer inhabits.
Historically, woodland caribou ranged south into the northern United States, but that southern edge has been retreating for more than a century. The last few caribou of the Selkirk Mountains herd — the final wild caribou regularly found in the contiguous United States — were relocated into Canada around 2019, leaving Alaska as the only U.S. state with wild caribou today.
Greenland
Caribou also live along the ice-free western margins of Greenland, where they graze the tundra between the coast and the great ice sheet.
Reindeer in Europe and Asia
Across the Atlantic, the same species carries on under its other name. Wild and semi-domesticated reindeer live across northern Scandinavia — Norway, Sweden, and Finland — and across the vast sweep of northern Russia, from the Kola Peninsula to Siberia and the Pacific coast.
Norway’s mountain plateaus hold some of Europe’s last truly wild tundra reindeer, while much of Scandinavia’s reindeer population is semi-domesticated and herded by the Indigenous Sámi people, a tradition thousands of years old. In Siberia, reindeer herding remains central to the culture and economy of peoples such as the Nenets and Evenki.
Reindeer even live on remote Arctic islands. The Svalbard reindeer, a notably short-legged, stocky subspecies, survives on the archipelago of Svalbard, far north of mainland Norway — among the northernmost large land mammals in the world.
Introduced populations
Humans have also carried reindeer well beyond their native range. Reindeer brought from Norway in the late 1700s established wild herds in eastern Iceland that still roam the highlands today. Herds were introduced to the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia by Norwegian whalers in the early 1900s — about as far from the Arctic as a reindeer can get — though those animals were removed in recent years to protect the island’s native ecosystem. Smaller introduced or escaped populations have popped up in various northern places over the centuries, a testament to how adaptable this species is wherever there’s lichen to eat.
Tundra, Taiga, and Mountains: Caribou Habitat Explained
Across that huge range, caribou occupy three broad habitat types, and many herds use more than one over the course of a year.
Arctic tundra
The treeless tundra is the classic caribou landscape: open, windswept, carpeted with sedges, dwarf shrubs, and the lichens that anchor the caribou’s winter diet. Tundra herds calve here in early summer, taking advantage of the burst of plant growth and the relative scarcity of predators, and the near-constant wind offers some relief from the Arctic’s ferocious mosquitoes.
Boreal forest (taiga)
The taiga — the belt of spruce, pine, and fir forest that rings the globe below the tundra — is winter refuge for migratory herds and a year-round home for woodland caribou. Snow under the trees tends to be softer and easier to dig through, and the forest offers lichens both on the ground and hanging from branches. It’s the same broad forest zone that moose favor, though the two species use it quite differently.
Mountains
Mountain caribou in western Canada and parts of Scandinavia move up and down in elevation with the seasons rather than traveling long distances north and south. High basins and ridgelines serve as summer range and insect relief; forested valleys and snowy subalpine slopes see them through winter.
Built for the North
Why can caribou live where no other deer can? A few standout adaptations make it possible:
- A double-layered coat of dense underfur beneath hollow guard hairs traps heat and even adds buoyancy for swimming.
- Broad, crescent-shaped hooves act as snowshoes in winter, paddles in rivers, and shovels for digging through snow to reach food.
- A specialized nose warms and humidifies frigid air before it reaches the lungs.
- Lichen digestion unlocks a winter food source that few other large mammals can use.
Put together, these traits let caribou thrive from the edge of the northern forests to islands within a few hundred miles of the North Pole.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do caribou live in the United States?
Yes, but today only in Alaska, where large migratory herds still roam the tundra. Woodland caribou once ranged into states such as Minnesota, Michigan, Maine, Idaho, and Washington, but those southern populations disappeared over the past century, with the last Selkirk Mountains animals moved to Canada around 2019.
Do caribou live at the North Pole?
No. The North Pole itself sits on drifting sea ice with nothing for a caribou to eat. But caribou and reindeer do live remarkably close to it — on Arctic islands such as Svalbard and Canada’s High Arctic archipelago. So while Santa’s workshop is out of range, the reindeer commute is shorter than you might think.
Why do caribou keep moving instead of staying in one place?
Lichens grow very slowly, so a herd that stayed put would quickly exhaust its own food supply. Constant movement — whether long-distance migration or smaller seasonal shifts — lets pastures recover, helps herds dodge predators and biting insects, and puts cows on the best ground at calving time. Movement isn’t a quirk of caribou life; it’s the strategy that makes their whole existence work.
