According to Critchfield and Little (1966), the natural range of Pinus strobus was from southeastern Manitoba to Newfoundland in Canada and from Minnesota and Iowa eastward to Maine and Pennsylvania, with a southward Appalachian extension to Tennessee and Georgia and isolated occurrences in western Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana. Additionally, Critchfield and Little mapped and discussed disjunct plants sometimes treated as var. chiapensis that occur in a series of isolated populations in southern Mexico (Guerrero, Puebla, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Chiapas) and adjacent Guatemala.

In temperate North America, Pinus strobus has been grown extensively in plantations, particularly beginning with the U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps extensive reforestation programs in the 1930s. Thus although heavy commercial timber removal followed by poor regeneration resulted in fewer and thinner native stands, the overall range of the species underwent an expansion. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish the natural range of the species prior to the European colonization of North America from the present range, which includes many naturalized stands and populations that became established from seeds dispersed from planted trees. Kartesz and Meacham (1999) and the U.S.D.A. Plants database now map a distribution from Manitoba to Arkansas, east to Newfoundland and Georgia.

Pinus strobus also has long been planted for reforestation programs, extensively in central and eastern Europe and less so in portions of Africa, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. In some places, it has escaped to become a naturalized invasive exotic Ulmer, 2003; Zerbe, 2007; http://www.hear.org/gcw/species/pinus_strobus/).