Crested wheatgrass is an introduced species, originally from Russian and Siberian steppe habitats.
It has been planted from Alaska south to California, throughout western Canada, east in the United States to Ohio, and south to Texas. Crested and desert wheatgrass became prevalent in the United States in the 1930s when they were used to seed abandoned cropland. Crested wheatgrass is most common in the northern Great Plains, especially North and South Dakota, eastern Montana and Wyoming, and in southern Saskatchewan and southeastern Alberta. Vegetation typings describing communities dominated by crested wheatgrass follow.