Klipspringers are dependent on rocky and mountainous terrain (Klipspringer means 'cliff-jumper' in Afrikaans), occurring up to 4,380 m in the Ethiopian Highlands (Yalden et al. 1996). The Rift Valleys and the Southern African escarpments provide extensive suitable habitat and are central to its distribution. They frequently use flatter areas of bush adjacent to cliffs and rocky outcrops (Robetrts 2013). Klipspringers are primarily browsers.

The Klipspringer has a wide distribution from north-eastern Sudan, Eritrea, northern Somalia and the Ethiopian Highlands, southwards through East and southern Africa, including  south-eastern DR Congo, to north-east South Africa, then again from southern South Africa and along the west coast into Namibia and Angola. Isolated populations occur in  (East 1999, Roberts 2013).

There are isolated populations of O. o. porteousi in Nigeria, on around the Jos Plateau (East 1999), and in in Gashaka-Gumti N.P. (Nicholas 2004) and in Central African Republic the Central African Republic (two separate areas in the northern and western uplands). The only country in which they formerly occurred, but are now probably extinct, is Burundi (East 1999).

Occurrence is confined to rocky and mountainous areas, both contiguous areas of habitat, such as the Rift Valley, Zambezi Valley and southern escarpments, and also isolated outcrops (Roberts 2013).

About one-quarter of the population occurs in protected areas, including: Simien and Bale Mountains (Ethiopia), Tsavo (Kenya), North and South Luangwa (Zambia), Nyika (Malawi), Namib-Naukluft (Namibia) and Matobo (Zimbabwe) and it occurs in lesser numbers in a large number of other protected areas throughout its range which contain smaller areas of suitable habitat (Roberts 2013). Very large numbers survive on private farmland in Namibia.
Western Klipspringer is known to occur in Lame Game Reserve and in Gashaka-Gumti National Park, which is thought to represent a stronghold for this isolated subspecies (East 1999, Nicholas 2004)