The Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) has been listed as a critically endangered species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, as well as a first-class national protected animal in China. Its population has suffered a sharp decline because of reckless illegal hunting in the past decades. Nevertheless, there has been little relevant research on this species, and the current distribution of the Chinese pangolins is still unknown; this greatly restricts the effective protection of this species. Therefore, we collected rescue records and news about the Chinese pangolins in China in recent years and identified 67 distribution points of the Chinese pangolins. In this study, the maximum entropy model software (MaxEnt) was used to select potentially important environmental variables. Six environmental variables, including the precipitation of the coldest quarter, population density, annual precipitation, altitude, slope, and aspect were significantly correlated with the distribution of the Chinese pangolins. The average values of the area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUC) of the MaxEnt models based on these six variables was 0.961±0.014, indicating that the accuracy of the MaxEnt model for predicting the areas of potential distribution of the Chinese pangolins was accurate. Jackknife showed that precipitation of the coldest quarter, annual precipitation, population density, and altitude were the most important factors affecting the distribution of the Chinese pangolins. Among them, precipitation-related factor was the most important environmental variables affecting the suitable habitat areas of the Chinese Pangolins. Population density was another important predictor. The most suitable habitat (probability of presence>0.498) was characterized by precipitation of the coldest quarter of 141.22-439.46 mm, annual precipitation of 1471.67-2386.56 mm, population density of ≥ 390 people/km², and altitudes<316.98 m. Furthermore, the model predicted that the potentially suitable distribution areas of the Chinese pangolin were 74.27×10⁴ km², accounting for 7.73% of the total area of China, mainly at the south of the Yangtze River, particularly in Jiangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, and Guangxi provinces, accounting for 97.58%, 89.65%, 76.90%, and 73.08% of these provinces, respectively; followed by Zhejiang, Fujian, Taiwan, and Anhui provinces. In addition, Hubei, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, and other provinces also have scattered distribution of Chinese pangolins. Neighboring regions of Jiangxi, such as southeastern Hubei, southern Jiangsu, southwestern Zhejiang, and northwestern Fujian, are also important potentially suitable areas for the distribution of Chinese pangolins. Understanding the potentially suitable distribution areas of the Chinese pangolin can provide useful information and instructive reference to the Chinese pangolin population conservation and habitat management.