The orange oakleaf is found in India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar, down to Tenasserim Hills. In Southeast Asia it occurs in southern China, Thailand, Laos, Taiwan, and Vietnam. It has been also recorded from Pakistan in 2000.
In India, the butterfly flies in the Himalayas at low elevations, from Jammu and Kashmir, through Garhwal and Kumaon to West Bengal, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, and other states of the northeast. It is also found in central and peninsular India; it flies in Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh; i.e. along the central Indian highlands to Pachmarhi and Amarkantak, the Western Ghats south to Bhimashankar, and in the Eastern Ghats north of the river Godavari.
The status of the butterfly in India is "not rare", while in China, the butterfly is considered "rare".
The orange oakleaf is encountered up to an altitude of 1,800 metres (5,900 ft) in the hills; though Mark Alexander Wynter-Blyth records it as being encountered up to 8,000 feet (2,400 m) in regions of heavy rainfall in thickly forested mountainous and hilly regions. In the Kumaon Himalayas, K. inachus has been recorded to inhabit tropical deciduous forest between 400 and 1,400 metres (1,300 and 4,600 ft) and subtropical evergreen forest above 1,200 metres (3,900 ft). In a survey of Chongqing municipality, China carried out from 1998 to 2004, K. inachis was found to inhabit moist broad-leaf forests.