GLUTZ and BAUER (1980) give the distribution range of the Common Swift as North Africa, Europe, Western, Northwest and Inner Asia, southern Russia eastward to the Olekma and into the Nerchinsk Mountains, Mongolia and northern China eastward to the Greater Khingan, Liaoning and Shandong. Two subspecies inhabit this area. The somewhat smaller and paler A. a. pekinensis (SWINHOE 1870), which occurs in the southeast of this range from Iran to the Olekma in southeastern Russia and into northeastern China, is distinguished from the nominate form Apus a. apus (LINNAEUS 1758). Both subspecies winter in tropical to southern Africa.
The breeding range of the Common Swift extends from the British Isles in the west southward along the northwest African Atlantic coast across the Maghreb and the Mediterranean region, continues across southern Asia Minor, Cyprus and the Near East (northwest Syria to Palestine) eastward to Lake Baikal; here the southern limit of the range is given as running from Transcaucasia via the mouth of the Emba and about 49° N in Kazakhstan to Lake Zaisan. In the north there is irregular occurrence up to about 67° N in Norway, and general distribution in Sweden as far as Jämtland and Västerbotten. In Swedish and Finnish Lapland, northward to the Pasvik valley in the extreme southeast of Finnmark / Norway, the Common Swift is recorded as a rare forest bird. From here the northern limit runs from about 68° N on the Kola Peninsula through the Arkhangelsk region, via about 66° N on the Pechora, 62° N in the Urals, 63° N on the Ob and 57° N on the Yenisei to Lake Baikal (GLUTZ and BAUER, 1980).
The density of occupation varies greatly from region to region. Thus Common Swifts are almost entirely absent as breeding birds from large parts of Hungary, Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, and occur only sparsely in northern and western Jutland / Denmark as well as along the Turkish Black Sea coast (GLUTZ and BAUER, 1980). Throughout Central Europe, Common Swifts are found mainly below 1000 m above sea level, predominantly in urban areas.
Originally a cliff breeder, the Common Swift now nests chiefly on masonry buildings (taller houses, churches, towers, castles, ruins, factories, storage sheds, railway stations). It uses small entrance openings beneath the roofs and ridges of mostly older buildings, but also of more modern structures such as the prefabricated concrete blocks in the eastern German states. Cliff-nesting birds hardly occur any more, and tree-nesting colonies have also become rare. For the area of the former West German states a breeding population of about 430,000 pairs has been estimated (RHEINWALD, 1993), and for the eastern German states around 110,000 pairs (NICOLAI, 1993), though with a wide margin of uncertainty. For Europe excluding Russia 3.9 – 4.9 million pairs are assumed, for Russia 1 – 5 million and for Turkey a maximum of 500,000 (HAGEMEIJER and BLAIR, 1997).