It occupies a wide range of habitats, humid and dry savannas, shrubland, forest edge, degraded forest, the lower levels of montane grassland, and a variety of anthropogenic habitats. It breeds in both temporary and permanent water, favouring large, well-vegetated pools.

This species ranges very widely in the savannah zone of Africa from Senegal, east to western Ethiopia, southern Somalia, and Kenya, thence south to Namibia, and South Africa. Records from Eritrea refer to Kassina somalica. There do not appear to be records from Guinea-Bissau, Togo and Burundi, but it presumably occurs in these countries. Its distributional limits in Kenya and northern Tanzania with respect to Kassina somalica are still poorly understood, and the distribution map should be considered provisional. It occurs up to 2,000 m asl in Ethiopia.

It occurs in many protected areas.