[1][2][3] The boxes are native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean, with the majority of species being tropical or subtropical; only the European and some Asian species are frost-tolerant.

Traditional Japanese boxwood combs are called Tsuge Gushi and have been in production since the Heian Period.

[9] The extremely fine endgrain of box makes it suitable for woodblock printing and woodcut blocks, for which it was the usual material in Europe.

Due to its high density, resistance to chipping, and relatively low cost, boxwood has been used to make parts for various stringed instruments since antiquity.

[12] Prior to the development of plastics, boxwood was important to a wide range of fields from engineering to arts, construction to cartography, due to its density and stability making it one of the best available materials for measurement scales and technical drawing rulers.

Devices made of boxwood included set squares, scale rulers, yardsticks, folding rulers, slide rules, Marquois scales, T-squares, protractors, and a wide range of other measuring, metering, and straight-edge devices and tools, as well as general functional items such as combs, weaving shuttles, etc.

[14] General Thomas F. Meagher decorated the hats of the men of the Irish Brigade with boxwood during the American Civil War, as he could find no shamrock.