Porpoises are some of the most widespread small whales in the world, yet most people have never knowingly seen one. Part of the reason is behaviour: porpoises are shy, surface quietly and rarely leap or ride bow waves. The other part is geography. Porpoises are concentrated in cool coastal waters, often in grey, choppy seas far from the tropical beaches where people go to see dolphins. Seven species exist, and each has its own range, from the North Sea to the Yangtze River and from Alaska to the edge of Antarctica. This page explains where each species lives, what kinds of habitat porpoises prefer and why. For an introduction to all seven, see our porpoise species guide.

The general rule: cool, shallow and coastal

Most porpoises live over the continental shelf, in water less than about 200 metres deep, and most prefer cool temperate or subpolar seas.

There are good reasons for that. Porpoises are small, and small bodies lose heat quickly. They compensate with a high metabolism and a thick layer of blubber, which means they need to eat often. Shelf seas in cool climates are some of the most productive waters on Earth, packed with schooling fish such as herring, sprat and capelin, and that steady food supply suits an animal that cannot go long without a meal. Porpoises also hunt with high-frequency echolocation that works best over short ranges, which suits shallow, cluttered coastal water.

The exceptions prove the rule. Dall’s porpoise and the spectacled porpoise live farther offshore in deep, cold water. The finless porpoises and the vaquita live in warm water, but in murky, shallow coastal habitats rich in food. No porpoise is a true open-ocean tropical species in the way that spinner or spotted dolphins are.

Harbour porpoise: the Northern Hemisphere’s porpoise

The harbour porpoise, Phocoena phocoena, has the largest range of any porpoise. In the North Atlantic it lives along the coasts of the eastern United States and Canada, around Greenland and Iceland, and along European coasts from Norway and the British Isles to the Bay of Biscay, including the North Sea and the Baltic. Isolated populations live in the Black Sea and off northwest Africa. In the North Pacific it ranges from Alaska down to central California, and on the Asian side from Japan to the Russian Far East.

Harbour porpoises stick close to the coast, often in bays, estuaries, sounds and around headlands where tidal currents concentrate fish. Some seasonal movements happen; in parts of the western Atlantic they shift south and offshore in winter. On the US East Coast they are mostly found from the Gulf of Maine north, with some reaching the Mid-Atlantic in winter, but they are not found in Florida. The Baltic Proper population is critically endangered, with only a few hundred animals estimated. See harbor porpoise for more about the species.

Dall’s porpoise: offshore in the North Pacific

Dall’s porpoise, Phocoenoides dalli, lives only in the North Pacific and its adjoining seas: the Bering Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan, south along the Asian coast to central Japan and along the American coast to Baja California. Unlike the harbour porpoise, it prefers deep, cold offshore water, though it also enters deep channels and fjords close to shore, such as those in British Columbia and Alaska. It is the fastest and most robust porpoise and is often seen throwing up a “rooster tail” of spray as it sprints at the surface. See Dall’s porpoise.

Vaquita: the smallest range of any marine mammal

The vaquita, Phocoena sinus, lives only in the northern end of the Gulf of California, the Sea of Cortez, in Mexico. Its whole range is a small area of shallow, murky water near the Colorado River delta, roughly around the town of San Felipe and the fishing communities nearby. No other marine mammal has such a small range. That makes the vaquita extremely vulnerable: almost its entire population can be exposed to the same fishing nets. Only a handful remain. See vaquita facts and Sea of Cortez.

Burmeister’s and spectacled porpoises: the Southern Hemisphere

Only two porpoises live in the Southern Hemisphere. Burmeister’s porpoise, Phocoena spinipinnis, lives along the coasts of South America, from northern Peru south around Tierra del Fuego and up the Atlantic side to southern Brazil. It prefers cool coastal waters influenced by the Humboldt and Falkland currents and is rarely seen far from shore. See Burmeister’s porpoise.

The spectacled porpoise, Phocoena dioptrica, lives in the cold subantarctic waters of the Southern Ocean. Most records come from southern South America, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and islands south of Australia and New Zealand such as the Auckland Islands, Macquarie and Kerguelen, as well as occasional strandings in Tasmania and southern New Zealand. It is thought to live mainly offshore and is very rarely seen alive. See spectacled porpoise and what lives in the Southern Ocean.

Finless porpoises: Asian coasts and rivers

The two finless porpoises live in warm and temperate waters of Asia. The Indo-Pacific finless porpoise, Neophocaena phocaenoides, ranges from the Persian Gulf along the coasts of Pakistan, India and Southeast Asia to Indonesia and southern China. It prefers shallow coastal water, estuaries and mangrove areas, and sometimes enters rivers.

The narrow-ridged finless porpoise, Neophocaena asiaeorientalis, lives farther north, along the coasts of China, Korea and Japan, including the Yellow Sea and the Seto Inland Sea. One subspecies, the Yangtze finless porpoise, lives entirely in fresh water in the middle and lower Yangtze River and the connected Poyang and Dongting lakes, making it the only freshwater porpoise in the world. It is critically endangered. See finless porpoises.

Do porpoises live in rivers or fresh water?

Most porpoises are marine, but a few enter fresh water. The Yangtze finless porpoise lives in fresh water full time. Indo-Pacific finless porpoises sometimes travel up large rivers in South and Southeast Asia, and harbour porpoises occasionally swim into the lower reaches of rivers in Europe and North America, usually following fish. Unlike the true river dolphins, though, porpoises are mainly coastal animals that tolerate brackish and fresh water rather than specialists in it.

Are there porpoises in Florida or the Caribbean?

Not really. People in Florida often call bottlenose dolphins “porpoises,” a habit inherited from old fishermen and early marine parks, but no porpoise species lives in Florida or the Caribbean. The nearest harbour porpoises on the US East Coast are usually north of the Carolinas, and they are rare even there. If you see a small cetacean riding the bow of a boat off Florida, it is almost certainly a dolphin. Our page on the difference between a dolphin and a porpoise explains how to tell them apart, and is a porpoise a whale? covers the family tree.

Where I would go to see a porpoise

Most of my diving has been in warm, clear water: the Florida Keys, the Caribbean, the Red Sea and the South Pacific. That is exactly the kind of water porpoises tend to avoid, which tells you a lot about where to look for them. If I wanted to see a porpoise in the wild, I would head north, not south. Good bets include the coasts of Maine and the Bay of Fundy, Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands, the coast of British Columbia, the Monterey Bay area for harbour porpoises, and Alaska for Dall’s porpoise. In Europe, the coasts of Wales, Scotland, Denmark and the Netherlands have healthy harbour porpoise populations.

My tip is to go on a calm day, because porpoises are hard to spot in choppy water, and to watch for a small, dark triangular fin that appears briefly in a quick roll. Listen too: on a still day you can sometimes hear the short “puff” of a porpoise breathing before you see it. For more on what they eat in these rich coastal waters, see what do porpoises eat.