Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China (mainland), India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines (B), Singapore (B), Taiwan (China), Thailand, Vietnam.
Introduced to Palau (B) (NB).
Population
Estimated population is unknown (2010).
Subspecies
Lonchura malacca (Sibley and Monroe 1990, 1993) has been split into Tricoloured Munia (Lonchura malacca) and Southern Black-headed Munia (Lonchura atricapilla) following AOU (2000).
May form a superspecies with Tricoloured Munia (Lonchura malacca) and White-capped Munia (Lonchura ferruginosa), and sometimes considered conspecific with former or with both.
Subspecies brunneiceps sometimes subsumed in jagori. In Borneo, proposed subspecies selimbauensis (described from Selimbau, in western Kalimantan) and obscura (from near Sampit, in southern Kalimantan) both regarded as synonyms of jagori.
The following 10 subspecies are recognised:
rubronigra (Hodgson, 1836) - Foothills of northern India and Nepal terai. Considered by some authors to be a subspecies of Tricoloured Munia (Lonchura malacca).
atricapilla (Vieillot, 1807) - Northern India (from Punjab east to Brahmaputra Valley, south to Bihar and northern Orissa), Bangladesh, Myanmar and southern China (south-western Yunnan).
deignani Parkes, 1958 - Thailand (except central and north-east), Indochina and south-eastern China.
sinensis (Blyth, 1852) - Malay Peninsula and northern Sumatra.