[1] The natural range of the Chinese rice fish is in East and Southeast Asia, including the Yangtze, Mekong, Irrawaddy, Salween, Red River and Nanpangjiang basins.

[3][4] It has been introduced to Kazakhstan and Russia (in the lower Kuban drainage); also spreading in the Azov basin and has been discovered in the Obytichna River in Ukraine.

The ideal environment for Chinese Rice Fish are inland freshwater and wetlands[9] areas of shallow, slow moving water sources, especially those close to shorelines that contain vegetative cover.

Mitochondrial data suggest that populations of rice fish found in Taiwan and the China-West Korean area have phylogenetic differences from latipes.

[8] There is still difficulty distinguishing which populations of rice fish in Eastern Asia belong to which species, as they have similar functions in the food and farming industry.