The green peafowl is in demand for private and home aviculture and threatened by the pet trade, feather collectors and hunters for meat and targeted.

In the male, this extends up to 2 m (6 ft 7 in) and is adorned with eyespots; in the female, the coverts are green and much shorter, just covering the tail.

Outside of the breeding season, however, the male's tail coverts (or train) is moulted; distinguishing the sexes during this period can be difficult unless they are observed quite up close.

The neck and breast feathers (of both sexes) are highly iridescent green and resemble Chinese dragon scales.

The green peafowl was widely distributed in Southeast Asia in the past from southern China especially Yunnan, eastern and north-eastern India, southeastern Bangladesh, northern Myanmar, extending through Laos, and Thailand into Vietnam, Cambodia, Peninsular Malaysia, and the island of Java in Indonesia, but in Java they are only found in protected areas such as Ujung Kulon National Park and Baluran National Park.

[3] Green peafowl are found in a wide range of habitats, including primary and secondary forest, both tropical and subtropical, as well as evergreen and deciduous.

As a result, the type locality described by Linnaeus was "Habitat in Japonia", though the species is not native to Japan (they were kept by the emperor and no longer occur).

François Levaillant was one of the first Western ornithologists to see a live bird, imported from Macau to an animal collection in Cape of Good Hope.

From an Indian painting, George Shaw described a peafowl native to India with a "blue head" and an "upright lanceolate crest", which he named Pavo spicifer, the spike-crested peacock.

From the advice of a bird dealer in Hong Kong, Delacour concluded there were three races of green peafowl, lumping P. spicifer into the species, as well.

[10] Using the cytochrome b mitochondrial DNA gene, Ouyang et al. estimated the divergence period between green and Indian peafowl to be 3 million years.

[3] Due to hunting; especially poaching, and a reduction in extent and quality of habitat, the green peafowl is evaluated as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

[3] In Cambodia, Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary was shown to hold a significant and increasing population of around 745 individuals in 2020.

[18] The green peafowl is often depicted in Japanese paintings from the Edo period, notably by Maruyama Ōkyo and Nagasawa Rosetsu.