The eland has a range that extends north into Ethiopia, to the east into western Angola and Namibia, and now even into South Africa (Lydon). However, most of the populations in the southern part of Africa are those that have been reintroduced to the area (Pappas 2002). Eland prefer to live in semi-arid areas that contain many shrub-like bushes (Watson and Owen-Smith 2000). They will though inhabit grasslands, woodlands, sub-desert, and bush (Lydon). Eland do, however, avoid forests, swamps, and deserts (Lydon). Like all large antelope species eland are dependent on a water source and will travel very long distances when water is not readily available (Bergstrom and Skarpe 1999).

Since eland inhabit such a wide variety of habitats, their diet is very diverse as well. They are considered to be browsers, but they will switch to grazing during the early part of the wet season (Watson and Owen-Smith 2000). In fact, during one study it was found that grasses made up over 45% of the eland's diet in December 1988 when it was only 6.3% the month before (Watson and Owen-Smith 2000). This is directly contrary to the normal diet of the eland with averages out to be 94% browse throughout the year and between 6-10% grasses (Watson and Owen-Smith 2000 and Sponheimer et al. 2003). This shows again that eland are able to readily adapt to changes in seasonal patterns. In a study from 1965 to 1966 Jarman noticed that eland were one of the few antelope to not regularly use a newly flooded plain where there was an abundance of grasses, rather they preferred to stay in to bushier areas that were more suitable to browsers and only seemed to use the flood plain for shade and water (Jarman 1972). But late in the dry season, the browsers, including the eland, frequented the flood plain more often (Jarman 1972). This supports the study done by Dekker and van Rooyen that eland will quickly change their eating habits and distribution when the wet and dry seasons (Dekker and van Rooyen 1996).

Overall though, eland prefer to eat vegetation such as Grewia occidentalis and other clumpy browsable plants that contain as much protein as possible (Watson 1999). This type of browse plant along with other deep rooted vegetation is able to grow long after the rains have stopped, unlike the grass on the plains (Jarman 1974). It was also found that eland will tend to eat more of a less nutrtional diet instead of seeking out higher quality plants (Jarman 1974). This is most likely due to an evolutionary adaptation that allows large antelope to survive on lower quality food in times of little rain (Jarman 1974).