It is native to a swath of the east side of the continent from the equatorial highlands of Kenya at its northern limit southwards through isolated mountains in Tanzania to both sides of Lake Malawi, the Mashonaland Plateau and Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe, and then along the lower slopes of the Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa and in coastal forest from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town.
A cape chestnut is one of the most impressive trees today that survived from these early plantings.