It ranges across tropical Africa, Madagascar, and the Comoro Islands.

The majority of species are endemic to Madagascar.

[2] Traditionally included in the family Sterculiaceae, it is included in the expanded Malvaceae in the APG and most subsequent systematics.

In that clade, it belongs to the subfamily Dombeyoideae.

Nesogordonia is among the oldest living genera of its subfamily, if not the most ancestral one.