Morphological characters and geographical distribution are the same as those of the family.

All three species in China are cultivated, usually as street trees. However, it is possible that Platanus kerrii Gagnepain (Bull. Soc. Bot. France 86: 301. 1939), described from Laos and also recorded from several places in N Vietnam, may yet be found as a wild plant in China (in SW Guangxi or S Yunnan). In this species, the stipules are very small, the petiole base does not enclose the axillary bud, the leaf blade is long elliptic and pinnately veined, with an entire margin, and the fruiting branchlets each have 8–12 rather small infructescences.