The South American pochard has a fragmented range and is found from Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina to Chile.

The African pochard occurs from the Cape to the Ethiopian highlands on water bodies with or without emergent vegetation.

They are suspected to have been strong migrants in the past but the construction of numerous farm dams seems to allow them a more sedentary lifestyle.

The birds are solitary nesters, building nests out of leaves and stems on the banks of a river surrounded by vegetation.

In 2016, the number of southern pochards was reported at around 25,000 in South America, but this could have been an overestimate due to a lack of data.