They occur in the northern coastal regions of the Palearctic and all over North America, migrating to more southerly coasts in winter, and as resident birds in the Hawaiian Islands.

Alone in the Southern Hemisphere, a self-sustaining feral population derived from introduced Canada geese is also found in New Zealand.

Two species have been described from subfossil remains found in the Hawaiian Islands, where they became extinct in prehistoric times: The relationships of the enigmatic Geochen rhuax, formerly known only from parts of a single bird's skeleton damaged due to apparently dying in a lava flow, were long unresolved.

[6] While a presumed relation between B. rhuax and the shelducks, proposed by Lester Short in 1970,[7] has thus been refuted, bones of a shelduck-like bird have been found more recently on Kaua‘i.

A number of supposed prehistoric grey geese have been described from North America, partially from the same sites as species assigned to Branta.

[10] On the other hand, a goose fossil from the Early-Middle Pleistocene of El Salvador is highly similar to Anser and given its age and biogeography it is likely to belong to that genus or Branta.