The plants are mostly shrubs and trees; most of its families have a cosmopolitan distribution in the tropics and subtropics, with limited expansion into temperate regions.

Among those most commonly encountered are leaf shapes in palmate form, sepals which are connate, and a specific structure and chemical composition of the seeds.

With numerous molecular phylogenies showing Sterculiaceae, Bombacaceae, and Tiliaceae as traditionally defined are either paraphyletic or polyphyletic, a consensus has been emerging for a trend to expand Malvaceae to include these three families.

Under the older Cronquist system the order contained these four "core Malvales" families plus the Elaeocarpaceae and was placed among the Dilleniidae.

[6] Neuradaceae Thymelaeaceae Bixaceae Malvaceae Sphaerosepalaceae Cytinaceae Muntingiaceae Cistaceae Dipterocarpaceae Sarcolaenaceae