Except in the taxonomic section, the following deals only with the nominate group (including subspecies xantholaema, nattereri and panamensis).They are found in the Amazon basin.

The yellow-crowned amazon was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[3][4] The yellow-crowned amazon is now one of around thirty species of parrot placed in the genus Amazona that was introduced by the French naturalist René Lesson in 1830.

[5][6] The genus name is a Latinized version of the name Amazone given to these parrot in the 18th century by the Comte de Buffon, who believed they were native to Amazonian jungles.

[10] This evaluation has, however, been confused by misunderstandings regarding the plumage variations in the populations in northern Honduras, where birds vary greatly in amount of yellow on the head, crown and nape, but have pale bills and a juvenile plumage matching the oratrix group, but neither the nominate nor the auropalliata group.

As caribaea may have a relatively pale lower mandible, this could indicating a level of gene flow between this and the nearby taxa of the oratrix group.

[13][14][15] Disregarding these problems, the following taxa are part of the Amazona ochrocephala complex as traditionally delimited:[16] Of these, hondurensis was only recently described,[18] while the population in northwestern Honduras and adjacent eastern Guatemala (near Puerto Barrios) resembles belizensis and is commonly included in that subspecies, but may actually represent an undescribed subspecies.

They have a dark bill with a large horn (gray) or reddish spot on the upper mandible, except panamensis, which has a horn-colored beak.

It is a bird of tropical forests (both humid and dry), woodlands, mangroves, and savannas and may also be found on cultivated land and suburban areas.

Although populations are believed to be in decline, they do not yet approach the threshold specified by BirdLife International to rate the species as near threatened.