It is native to southern and western Mexico (as far north as Michoacán) as well as Central America.

Quercus sapotifolia ranges through the mountains and foothills of eastern and southern Mexico and through Central America as far as central Panama, between 250 and 2,000 meters elevation.

[1] In Mexico it is found in the southern Sierra Madre Oriental, Sierra Madre de Oaxaca, eastern Sierra Madre del Sur, as well as the Chiapas Highlands and Sierra Madre de Chiapas in the states of Hidalgo, Veracruz, Puebla, Oaxaca, and Chiapas.

It is also found in the highlands of Central America, including the Sierra Madre de Chiapas and Guatemalan Highlands of Guatemala, the Maya Mountains of Belize, the Chortis Highlands of El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, and the Cordillera de Talamanca of Costa Rica and western Panama.

It often grows on coarse soils derived from sandstones, rapidly-draining igneous rocks with high quartz content, and rhyolitic soils with high quartz and clay content.