The Coryphoideae is one of five subfamilies in the palm family, Arecaceae. It contains all of the genera with palmate leaves, excepting Mauritia, Mauritiella and Lepidocaryum, all of subfamily Calamoideae, tribe Lepidocaryeae, subtribe Mauritiinae. The subfamily comprises approximately 46 genera and more than 400 species, with members occurring across tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate regions worldwide, best known for their palmateor costapalmate (“fan”) leaves. Historically, this leaf form played a disproportionate role in palm classification, leading to the long-standing assumption that all fan palms represented a single, closely related evolutionary lineage. However, all Coryphoideae palm leaves have induplicate (V-shaped) leaf folds (excepting Guihaia), while Calamoideae palms have reduplicate (inverted V-shaped) leaf folds. Pinnate leaves do occur in Coryphoideae, in Phoenix, Arenga, Wallichia and bipinnate in Caryota.
Coryphoids are well-represented in the fossil record from the Late Cretaceous (Campanian) onwards, primarily because of the presence of the form genus Sabalites.