This large, colourful and highly variable spurfowl has a fragmented distribution in southern Africa, with subspecies occurring in the southern Cape coast of South Africa, reaching northwards through the high rainfall areas of northern South Africa and into the woodlands of the eastern highlands of Zimbabwe and coastal Mozambique. There is an 'isolated' population on the Kunene River in the Ruacana/Epupa Important Bird Area, which is in fact the southward extension of the smallest subspecies P. a. afer that extends into the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola.