The white-necklaced partridge was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[5] The white-necklaced partridge is now one of around twenty species placed in the genus Arborophila that was introduced in 1837 by Brian Houghton Hodgson.

[11] The adult's forehead is white (in the nominate subspecies),[2] and there is a long supercilium.

[2] The short beak is grey, the eyes are brown, and the legs are red.

[2] The white-necklaced partridge is endemic to southeastern China, in Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi.

The territorial call is a repeated plaintive whistle, including wooop and co-qwee.

The species is threatened by habitat loss caused by forest clearing, construction of roads and mining.