The woodhoopoes and scimitar-bills form a small, homogeneous coraciform family, Phoeniculidae, restricted to sub-Saharan Africa. Of the eight species of phoeniculids recognized by Ligon and Davidson (1988), the Green Woodhoopoe (Phoeniculus purpureus) is the most common and widespread, occurring from East to West Africa, and south to the tip of South Africa.

As suggested by the species' broad geographical and ecological range, Green Woodhoopoes are not particularly habitat specific. They occur in savannah, open woodland, palm groves, riverine forest in arid thorn bush, and in wooded gardens, from near sea level to over 2000 m. They are, however, absent from dense forest, such as the rainforests of West Africa. In general, their habitat requirements seem to be open woodland, with at least some trees large enough to provide nest and roost cavities.

Unlike several other cooperative breeders, Green Woodhoopoes are strongly sexually dimorphic in weight and in bill length, and, in addition, all vocalizations of adults are sexually diagnostic. We suspect that the larger size of males is related to intense male–male competition for territories and females. Whatever its adaptive basis, large body size also appears to carry a cost to males of all ages, in the form of greater annual mortality relative to females (see below).