The distribution for the eastern woodrat stretches across the Southeastern and Midwestern United States. They are located as far south as the Tennessee River and Central Florida. The more central areas they are found are Kentucky and Tennessee. Northern locations include Kansas, central Missouri, and southern Illinois. They can also be found along the Appalachian Mountains that range all the way to New York. They’re also in some western locations and Piedmont areas of Maryland. They can be see in places like woodlands, prairies, mountains, swamps, lowland hardwood forests, man as far west as Colorado. The more disjunctive population occurrence is in Nebraska and Key Largo Florida. Woodrats are usually found in marshes, coastal plains, and grasslands. The eastern woodrat's habitat ranges latitudinally from central Florida to southeastern New York, and longitudinally from Connecticut to eastern Colorado. Reintroduction to north-eastern states, such as Illinois, have occurred in the 2010s.