The collared kingfisher was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux in 1780.

[2] The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle.

[3] Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Alcedo chloris in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées.

The subspecies that occurs furthest west in the Eurasian/African landmass is T. c. abyssinica of north-east Africa, which is found in patches of mangroves in Eritrea and has also been recorded from Sudan and Somalia.

In Southeast Asia and Indonesia as well as Philippines, the species is widespread and common, occurring far inland in some regions.

When it spots something it glides down to catch it and then flies back to the perch where larger items are pounded against the branch to subdue them.

A clutch of usually two to five rounded, whitish eggs are laid directly on the floor of the burrow with no nest material used.

With a very wide distribution and common to abundant population,[10] the collared kingfisher is classed as least concern on the IUCN Red List.