One subspecies occurs in the Andaman islands, and one subspecies occurs in continental Southeast Asia and partly extending to northeastern parts of South Asia along the foothills of the Himalayas.

Small numbers occur in other cities such as Chennai and Bangalore in India.

The red-breasted parakeet was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.

[3] The red-breasted parakeet is now placed in the genus Psittacula that was introduced in 1800 by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier.

The specific epithet alexandri is from Alexander the Great whose soldiers introduced parakeets to Greece.