Santalum album Linn is distributed between 30° N and  40° S from Indonesia in the West to Juan Fernandez Islands in the East and from the Hawaiian Archipelago the North to New Zealand in the South.

In India, it is found distributed all over the country and more than 70% is found in the southern states of Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Kerala. Other states where sandalwood trees are found are, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Manipur. It has now been introduced to many parts of India where it was not naturally distributed. Sandalwood has no definite geographical boundary, it can adapt well into new environments.

In Indonesia, Santalum album occurs on the neighboring islands of Timor, Sumba Flores, Alor and Roti. In Sri Lanka, it is distributed in the southern and central provinces. Occurrence of sandalwood has been reported in Malaysia and Hawaii.

Sandalwood trees have been introduced to Australia, China (Guangzhou province) and Africa (Tanzania and Ghana) in recent years and they have adapted well to the new environment.

Samoa, Tonga Islands are planting S.album under Agro forestry and Tree planting program of minimum of 10 ha per year since 2012. In New Caledonia and Vanuatu, S. album has been introduced, keeping the view of competitive hybrid with S.austrocaledonicum..

In Fiji and Tonga Island S.album hybrids with the local S.yasi, have been widely planted throughout Archipelago. In the humid parts of Fiji, the F1 hybrid performs much better than either parent. Unfortunaly, S.album has been introduced to many Pacific countries for the establishment of plantations; the problem is that it crosses very rapidly with indigenous sandalwood of those regions. Besides loosing unique tree types, the market is going to be very confused when the trees are commercially harvested.