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Where have dinosaur fossils been found around the world?

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Illustration showing various dinosaur species drawn to scale and grouped by geologic era: Late Cretaceous, Early Cretaceous, Jurassic, and Triassic. Dinosaurs range from large species like Brachiosaurus and Tyrannosaurus to smaller ones like Velociraptor and Compsognathus, with a human silhouette included for size comparison. Measurement bars at the bottom indicate 1 meter and 3 feet for scale reference. — dinosaur A selection of dinosaurs grouped by the geologic interval in which they lived.

Dinosaur fossils have been recovered from every continent on Earth. These remains are found within sedimentary rock layers that date back to the Mesozoic Era, spanning approximately 252.2 million to 66 million years ago.1

While fossils have been discovered globally, they are not distributed evenly across all environments. Because upland areas, forests, and plains are prone to erosion and decomposition, most dinosaur fossils are preserved in lowland environments, such as floodplains, deltas, lake beds, and stream bottoms.2

Historically significant finds include:
* Europe: Early 19th-century discoveries in southern England led to the formal naming of the group Dinosauria by Richard Owen.13
* North America: Early fossils were identified in New Jersey, Connecticut, and the western United States.3
* Asia: The Altai region of Mongolia is well known for its protoceratopsian fossils.3