Distribution: Canares, Azores, North Africa, South and Central Europe, few records in Scandinavia (Pekkarinen, Huldén, 1995), Asia Minor, Near East, Transcaucasia, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, N India: Kashmir, Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China, Korea. Introduced into Iceland, Canada, USA, Chile, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, S Africa. Russia: European part, N Caucasus, Southern Siberia, Amur basin, Primorye, South Sakhalin (Tobias, 1978; Kurzenko, 1995, 2004; Dubatolov, 1998). Additional information on the site of Prof. J.Kojima.

Localities from collection of SZMN and literature: Russia: Orenburg Province (not shown on map!): Orenburg (ZIN collection); Nature Reserve "Burtinskaya step" (Belyaevka District; by courtesy of V.A.Nemkov); Donskoe (Belyaevka District); Shaitantau Mts. (Kuvandyk District; by courtesy of V.A.Nemkov); Kurgan Province: Zverinogolovskoe (Glyadyanskoe district), Lebyazh’e, Kurgan, Pes'yanoe (Kurtamysh district), Prosvet and Temlyakovo (Ketovo district); Tyumen Province: Tyumen vic., Turba river (65 km SSW Tobolsk); Omsk Province: Solyanoe (Cherlak district); Tomsk Province: Ust'-Churul'ka (Kargasok district), Kolomino (Podgornoe district), Filonovo (Tomsk district); Novosibirsk Province: 13 km W from Karasuk, Kaily and Tropino (Kuibyshevo district), Novosibirsk; Altaiskii Krai: 7-8 km NE from Tret'yakovo, Zarinsk, Golubtsovo; Altai Republic: 5 km from the Bulukhta River mouth (Shebalino district), Artybash (Teletskoe Lake); Khakas Republic: Lake Shira (ZIN collection); Krasnoyarsk Province: Krasnoyarsk (ZIN collection), Minusinsk (ZIN collection), Taseevo; Tuva: Teli, Khemchik (Ust'-Chirchik), Chaa-Khol' (Shagonar district), Irbitei and 45 km W from Oo-Shinaa (Samagaltai district), 30 km W from Erzin; Buryatia: Chikoi vic. (Kyakhta district); Chita Province: Chita, Nizhnii Tsasuchei, Nerchinsk (ZIN collection), village Budyumkan; Aginskii Buryat Autonomous District: Aginskoe (ZIN collection); Amur Province: Kuznetsovo (Magdagachi district), Blagoveshchensk, Lozovoe (Tambovka district), Novospassk, Nature Reserve Khinganskii (Kurzenko, 1992), Talakan; Khabarovsk Province: Khabarovsk vic., between Vyazenskii and Kotikovo (Khabarovsk Local Museum collection); Primorskii Krai: Station Ussuri (ZIN collection), Chernigovka (ZIN collection), Lake Khanka (Sk.Yamane, Wagner, S.Yamane, 1980), Troitskoe on Lake Khanka (ZIN collection), Yakovlevka (ZIN collection), Ussuriisk (ZIN collection); Vladivostok vic.: Okeanskaya (Khabarovsk Local Museum collection); Sakhalin: Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (Kurzenko, 2004). Other localities were taken from Kurzenko, 1982. Kazakhstan: Ural'sk Province: Uralsk (ZIN collection), Yanvartsevo on river Ural (ZIN collection), Mergenevo (ZIN collection); 30 km NE of Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kuludzhun sands (Samarskoe district), 35 km NW from Nikitinka, Topolevka (Marka-Kol' district). Mongolia: Uvs aimak: Charchiraa (Gusenleitner, 1991), river Tes headwater (ZIN collection). China: Heilongjiang: Anto (Sk.Yamane, Wagner, S.Yamane, 1980).

References
Dubatolov, V.V. 1998. Social wasps (Hymenoptera, Vespidae: Polistinae, Vespinae) of Siberia in the collection of Siberian Zoological Museum. - Far Eastern Entomologist 57: 1-11.
Dubatolov, V.V., Dolgikh, A.M. 2009. Social wasps (Hymenoptera, Vespidae: Polistinae, Vespinae) of the Bolshekhekhtsyrskii nature reserve (the Khabarovsk suburbs), with notes on their distribution in the Lower Amur. - Amurian zoological journal 1 (1): 76-82.
Kurzenko, N.V. 1982. [Map 144. Vespula germanica, 1793)]. In: [Ranges of Insects in the European part of the USSR. Atlas]. Ed. K. B. Gorodkov. Maps 126-178. Leningrad: 22.
Kurzenko, N.V. 1992. [Fam. Vespidae]. In: [Insects of the Nature Reserve Khinganskii]. Part 2. Dal'nauka, Vladivostok: 251-254. (In Russian).
Kurzenko, N.V. 1995. [Fam. Vespidae]. In: [A key to insects from the Far East of Russia]. Vol. 4. Neuropteroidea, Mecoptera, Hymenoptera. Part 1. - St-Petersburg: 264-324. (In Russian).
Kurzenko, N.V. 2004. [Vespid and Sapygid wasps fauna (Hymenoptera, Vespidae, Sapygidae) of Sakhalin Island]. In: [Flora and fauna of Sakhalin Island (Materials of International Sakhalin Island Project)]. Part 1. Dal'nauka, Vladivostok: 193-208. (In Russian).
Pekkarinen, A., Huldén, L. 1995. Distribution and phenology of the Vespinae and Polistinae species ineastern Fennoscandia (Hymenoptera: Vespidae). - Sahlbergia 2: 99-111.
Tobias, V.I. 1978. [Superfamily Vespoidea - hornets.1. Family Vespidae]. In: [A key to insects from the European part of the USSR]. T. III. [Hymenoptera]. P. 1. Nauka, Leningrad: 147-152. (In Russian).
Yamane, Sk., Wagner, R.E., Yamane, S. 1980. A tentative revision of the subgenus Paravespula of Eastern Asia (Hymenoptera, Vespidae). - Insecta Matsumurana 19: 1-46.