GLUTZ and BAUER (1980) cite North Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Northwest and Inner Asia, southern Russia eastward to the Olekma and to the Nerchinsk Mountains, Mongolia and North China eastward to the Greater Khingan, Liaoning and Shandong as the distribution area of the Common Swift. Two subspecies inhabit this area. The nominative form Apus a. apus (LINNAEUS 1758) is distinguished from the somewhat smaller and paler A. a. pekinensis (SWINHOE 1870), which occurs in the southeast of this area from Iran to the Olekma in southeastern Russia and to northeastern China. Both subspecies overwinter in tropical to southern Africa.
The breeding range of the Common Swift extends from the British Isles in the west to the south along the northwestern African Atlantic coast via the Maghreb and the Mediterranean region, stretches across southern Asia Minor, Cyprus and the Middle East (Northwest Syria to Palestine) eastward to Lake Baikal, where the southern range boundary is given with Transcaucasia via the Emba estuary and about 49° N in Kazakhstan to Zaisan. In the north there is an irregular occurrence up to about 67° N in Norway, a general distribution in Sweden to Jämtland and Västerbotten. In Swedish and Finnish Lapland northward to the Pasvik valley in the extreme southeast of Finnmark / Norway, the Common Swift is mentioned as a rare forest bird. From here, the northern boundary extends 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 colonization of individual areas varies greatly in density. Thus, Common Swifts are almost completely absent as breeding birds in large parts of Hungary, Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, and occur only sparsely in North and West Jutland / Denmark as well as on the Turkish Black Sea coast (GLUTZ and BAUER, 1980). In all parts of Central Europe, Common Swifts are mainly found below 1000 m above sea level, predominantly in urban settlement areas.
As a former cliff breeder, the Common Swift mainly nests on stone structures (taller houses, churches, towers, castles, ruins, factories, warehouses, railway stations). Small entry possibilities under roofs and ridges of predominantly older buildings are used, but also more modern structures such as the prefabricated buildings in the new federal states. Cliff breeders are hardly found anymore, and tree-breeding colonies have also become rare. For the area of the old federal states, a breeding population of about 430,000 pairs was estimated (RHEINWALD, 1993), for that of the new federal states about 110,000 pairs (NICOLAI, 1993), albeit with a high 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).