Currawongs are three species of medium-sized passerine birds belonging to the genus Strepera in the family Artamidae native to Australia.

Despite their resemblance to crows and ravens, they are only distantly related to the corvidae, instead belonging to an Afro-Asian radiation of birds of superfamily Malaconotoidea.

Ornithologist Richard Bowdler Sharpe held that currawongs were more closely related to crows and ravens than the Australian magpie and butcherbirds, and duly placed them in the Corvidae.

[2] A review of the family Cracticidae by ornithologist John Albert Leach in 1914, during which he had studied their musculature, found that all three genera were closely related.

[3] Ornithologists Charles Sibley and Jon Ahlquist recognised the close relationship between the woodswallows and the butcherbirds and relatives in 1985, and combined them into a Cracticini clade,[4] which later became the family Artamidae in the official Australian checklist in 2008.

[5] The International Ornithologists' Union has maintained the two clades as separate families, hence currawongs are listed along with butcherbirds, magpie and Peltops.

[6] The family Cracticidae has its greatest diversity in Australia, which suggests that the radiation of its insectivorous and scavenger members to occupy various niches took place there.

[8] Currawongs and indeed all members of the broader Artamidae are part of a larger group of African shrike-like birds including bushshrikes (Malaconotidae), helmetshrikes (Prionopidae), ioras (Aegithinidae), and vangas (Vangidae), which were defined as the superfamily Malaconotoidea by Cacraft and colleagues in 2004.