The white-backed woodpecker was described by the German naturalist Johann Matthäus Bechstein in 1802 under the binomial name Picus leucotos.

[5] The species is now placed in the genus Dendrocopos that was introduced by the German naturalist Carl Ludwig Koch in 1816.

[9] Drumming by males is very loud, calls include a soft kiuk and a longer kweek.

It is a scarce bird, requiring large tracts of mature deciduous forests with high amounts of standing and laying dead wood.

In Sweden, its population decline has caused the Swedish government to enact protection for the species in the national Biodiversity Action Plan.