Nearly 892 species belong to this group as it includes buntings, American sparrows, the New World blackbirds, the parulid warblers, the cardinals, and the tanagers.

The group originated after a rapid speciation event in North America after arriving from Eurasia via the Bering Strait during the Miocene epoch.

[1] The interrelationships among the emberizoids has been a source of contention as several genera have been shifted around in many phylogenetic studies.

The cladogram of the emberizoids shown below is based on the analysis of Carl Oliveros and colleagues published in 2019.

[2][a] Fringillidae Rhodinocichlidae Calcariidae Emberizidae Cardinalidae Mitrospingidae Thraupidae Passerellidae Parulidae Icteriidae Icteridae Calyptophilidae Zeledoniidae Spindalidae Nesospingidae Phaenicophilidae The Oliveros at al (2019) study considered Spindalidae and Nesospingidae to both be part of Phaenicophilidae, and Icteriidae as being a part of Icteridae, but they are shown as distinct in this tree.