Where Do Cardinals Live? Range, Habitat and States

Where Northern Cardinals live, from the habitat they need to the states and countries they reach, with sections on Florida and Texas. For the bird itself, see the Northern Cardinal guide.

Across the eastern and central United States and southeastern Canada, west to the Great Plains, and in the Southwest in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. South of the border they live through much of Mexico to northern Guatemala and Belize. People have also introduced them to Hawaii and the Los Angeles area, and they have lived on Bermuda since at least the early 1800s.¹

Wherever they live, they stay all year: cardinals do not migrate.

Dense shrubs and small trees. Cardinals live in yards, parks and towns, woodland edges, hedgerows, overgrown fields, thickets by swamps and rivers, and in the Southwest in mesquite and desert scrub.^{2, 3} They need thick cover to nest in and a few high perches to sing from.

They do well around people. In central Ohio, urban woodlands held more cardinals than rural ones, both in the breeding season and in winter.

In the Southeast. In Breeding Bird Survey counts from 1982 to 1991, the most cardinals per route were recorded in Louisiana (59.2) and Mississippi (49.0), with Texas (27.4) and Ohio (26.6) also high, and far fewer in Maine (0.5) and South Dakota.¹

Every state east of the Great Plains, from Maine to Florida and west to Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana, plus Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, southeastern South Dakota and Texas, and parts of Arizona and New Mexico. The edge of the range runs through easternmost Colorado, western Kansas and western Oklahoma.

Cardinals have been spreading north for well over a century, helped by milder winters, the shrubby edges people create and bird feeders, and now reach southern Ontario and Quebec and the Maritime provinces of Canada.

Only on the eastern edge of the state, where they are rare and local.

A small population introduced around Los Angeles before 1923 still survives and has been recorded south to San Diego, and wild cardinals are rarely seen along the lower Colorado River in the southeast of the state. Pyle and Pyle, writing about Hawaii's birds, list the California introduction as unsuccessful, so the population is small at best.

There are no wild ones. Escaped cage birds have been reported in Washington and British Columbia, but no population has become established.

Only as rare wanderers. Utah has one accepted record, in June 2010 in Washington County. Montana had 14 records to 2016, east of the Continental Divide, and southern Nevada at least 5 reports to 2000.¹

Escaped cage birds have been reported in the United Kingdom, but there are no wild cardinals in Europe.

Cardinals live all over Florida, all year, south to the southern tip of the state.

Florida's cardinals are their own subspecies. Birds in peninsular Florida and southeastern Georgia belong to floridanus, which is smaller and darker than the northern birds, though the two blend where they meet. Florida cardinals start nesting early: the earliest egg date on record for the state is 30 March. Numbers in peninsular Florida have fallen slightly, by about 0.4% a year on the Breeding Bird Survey between 1966 and 2019.¹

Cardinals live across most of Texas, all year, though they are rare in the westernmost counties. Texas had one of the highest counts per route on the Breeding Bird Survey, 27.4 birds, in 1982 to 1991.¹

Two subspecies meet in Texas: canicaudus in central and western Texas and magnirostris, with a larger bill, in the southeast. In parts of Texas, as in Arizona, the Pyrrhuloxia, a close relative, lives alongside them. It is grayer, with a short, curved yellow bill, and the territories of the two species can overlap. More: how to tell them apart.

Most stay in one area for life. Nearly 90% of banded cardinals that were later found dead were within the same small block of latitude and longitude where they had been banded.⁴ Adults keep the same territory from year to year, and young birds settle a mile or two from where they hatched. In winter some wander further for food. More: cardinals in winter.

Cardinals roost in thick shrubs, thickets or conifers, late in the evening, often after a burst of loud chip calls. In winter, flock members roost together, and pairs may roost close to each other.

Northern Cardinals have lived on all the main Hawaiian Islands since they were introduced in 1929 to 1931. See cardinals in Hawaii.

1. Halkin, S. L., Shustack, D. P., DeVries, M. S., Jawor, J. M., Linville, S. U. (2021). Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis), version 2.0. Birds of the World (P. G. Rodewald and B. K. Keeney, editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology. doi:10.2173/bow.norcar.02
2. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Northern Cardinal: Life History. All About Birds. Accessed 6 October 2026. Source
3. Kaufman, K.. Northern Cardinal. Audubon Guide to North American Birds (text adapted from Lives of North American Birds, 1996). Accessed 6 October 2026. Source
4. Dow, D. D., Scott, D. M. (1971). Dispersal and range expansion by the cardinal: an analysis of banding records. Canadian Journal of Zoology 49(2): 185-198. doi:10.1139/z71-028