The members of the Arecales are distinctive in geography and habit; all but a very few species are restricted to the tropics and subtropics, where they make up a prominent part of the vegetation. Characteristically woody, they stand out within the largely herbaceous monocotyledons (monocotyledon) (monocots). The family is fourth among monocotyledonous families in size, after the Orchidaceae, Poaceae, and Cyperaceae.

Palms have been difficult to study for several reasons. Their large size and extreme hardness deterred early collectors, which led Liberty Hyde Bailey, an eminent American horticulturist during the early 20th century, to call palms the big game of the plant world. Many genera are island endemics. Notwithstanding their importance, they remained poorly known until air travel to remote tropical areas became feasible. Increased botanical exploration of the tropics in the 1980s established the importance of palms, which resulted in measures for studying and conserving them.

The palms have been variously placed with the families Araceae (in the order Alismatales), Pandanaceae (order Pandanales), and Cyclanthaceae (also Pandanales) on the basis of a woody habit with leaves in terminal clusters and presumably similar inflorescence structure. Subsequent study, however, revealed that the architecture, leaves, inflorescence, flowers, and seeds are structurally different in these families and that they are not closely related to each other (except for the latter two families being in the order Pandanales).

Similar patterns in epicuticular wax, in certain organic acids found in cell walls, in flavonoid compounds, and in some parasites all suggested that palms had a common ancestry with the former subclass Commelinidae; these affinities are now supported by results of DNA analyses. Ongoing developmental studies, cladistic analyses, and studies of DNA are expected to lead to more insights on the evolution and relationships of these unusual plants.

The Australian family Dasypogonaceae (also known as Calectasiacea), with four genera and 16 species, was traditionally allied with the family Liliaceae (lilies (lily)) but is now believed to be more closely related to the palms because of their common possession of ultraviolet-fluorescent compounds in the cell walls, a special type of epicuticular wax, and stomatal complexes with subsidiary cells.

The Arecaceae have one of the longest and most extensive fossil records of any family of the monocots, extending some 80 million years ago to the Late Cretaceous Period. The Arecaceae are structurally very diverse and one of the most distinctive groups in the monocots. They differ from close relatives in always lacking sympodial branching below a terminal inflorescence, in having leaves with a nonplicate (non-fan-shaped) marginal strip that is shed during development, and in having a tubular leaf sheath. Palms also have collateral, rather than compound, vascular bundles in their stems and silica bodies that are borne in specialized cells (stegmata) throughout. Vessels, often with simple perforation plates, are found in roots, stems, and leaves.

The distinctive pattern of development of the compound leaves of the palms is one of the unique features of this family and differs from all other flowering plants. In most plants with compound leaves, each pinna of the leaf develops from a separate meristem that grows independently from the rest of the leaf. In the palms, however, the compound nature of the leaves is derived from a single meristem that forms a plicated simple blade that then undergoes lateral cell degradation along the folds of the blade, leading to the formation of separate pinnae.

The palm inflorescences may be huge and branched to six levels. Thirty-five genera of palms bear spadixlike inflorescences and associated spathelike bracts. Spathes in the Arecaceae, however, are bracts of different kinds and are therefore not always homologous either to each other or to spathes of other monocots. The spathes may be large and colourful or rather leaflike, and they function to protect the flowers as well as to encourage animal pollination.