[4][6] Overall they are distributed in the northwest Pacific, between 21–42°N and 109–134°E,[6] or from Guangdong in China to the west coast of the Korean peninsula and the Ariake Sound in southwestern Japan.

[4][5][6] A traditional delicacy, the species is commercially fished in Korea, China and Japan.

In China it is one of the most expensive fish sold, and as the anadromous variety is more expensive than the freshwater variety, the industry is mostly focussed in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and Yangtze.

Other groups have been reported to be resident in freshwater lakes during their entire life cycle, making the species an interesting model of partial migration or migratory dimorphism.

[8] To understand this process a 870Mb length reference genome has been assembled, and using this a population genetics study of representative freshwater and migratory individuals has probed deeper into the molecular mechanisms of migratory adaptation.