Distribution

Widely distributed across Eurasia, except in far northern Scandinavia. In North Africa it occurs in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, and in the Middle East and central Asia from Iran and Afghanistan to Mongolia, and in northern Asia from the Urals to northern China and east to the Amur Valley bordering Russia and China.

Introduced Range

In the early 2000s, a series of escapees were reported in McHenry County, northern Illinois, United States, and were soon successfully breeding there and in nearby Wisconsin (73 Fiske, D. (2004). Great Tits nest in McHenry County. Meadowlark: A Journal of Illinois Birds 13(1):18. Close ). A small nesting population still persists on the coast of Lake Michigan north of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas).

Extralimital Records

Vagrants, presumably of wild origin, have been recorded from Iceland (eBird, S11912956), Canary Islands (Tenerife, Fuerteventura: 74 Clarke, T. (2006). Birds of the Atlantic Islands. Christopher Helm, London, UK. Close ; Gran Canaria: eBird, S154184148), Malta, and the Bering Strait (Little Diomede Island: eBird, S61661617). Additional scattered records from North America are more likely to represent escapees from captivity.

In the 1900s, the species’ range in Europe expanded north into Norway, Finland, and northern Scotland, with significant increases in the Netherlands and Estonia, and by more than 50% in Ukraine, since 1970 (19 Cramp, S., and C. M. Perrins, Editors (1993). The Birds of the Western Palearctic. Volume 7. Flycatchers to shrikes. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Close , 75 Hagemeijer, W. J. M., and M. J. Blair, Editors (1997). The EBCC Atlas of European Breeding Birds: their Distribution and Abundance. T. & A. D. Poyser, London, UK. Close ). In the eastern Mediterranean, the species spread south in Israel between 1950 and 1970 with the growth of human settlements (76 Shirihai, H. (1996). The Birds of Israel: A Complete Avifauna and Bird Atlas of Israel. Academic Press, London, UK. Close ); it became established in northern Sinai (northeast Egypt) in the early 1970s and the species is now locally common there (77 Goodman, S. M., and P. L. Meininger, Editors. (1989). The Birds of Egypt. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Close ). Since 1978 it has spread to southern Kamchatka, where the Great Tit is now resident around towns and adjacent areas of forest.