[2] The species was once also widespread in southern Australia but disappeared from there largely due to the drainage of the wetlands where the birds once bred.

Due to their importance to Aboriginal people as a seasonal food source,[3] as subjects of recreational hunting,[4] and as a tourist attraction, their expansive and stable presence in northern Australia has been "ensured [by] protective management".

The related and extant families, Anhimidae (screamers) and Anatidae (ducks, geese, and swans), contain all the other taxa.

[6] A cladistic study of the morphology of waterfowl found that the magpie goose was an early and distinctive offshoot, diverging after screamers and before all other ducks, geese, and swans.

[8] The earliest known member of the group in Australia is Eoanseranas represented by fossils found in the late Oligocene Carl Creek Limestone of Queensland.

[9] Additional fossils from North America and Europe suggest that the family was spread across the globe during the late Paleogene period.

[10] The Australian distribution of the living species ties in well with the presumed Gondwanan origin of Anseriformes, but Northern Hemisphere fossils are puzzling.

The magpie goose is found in a variety of open wetland areas such as floodplains and swamps, where they wade and swim.

[16] With the advent of climate change, and more frequent seawater inundations of the current extensive freshwater floodplains, CSIRO scientists argue that magpie geese populations may be at risk.