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The present paper is the result of a joint effort made by a team of zoologists, each being a specialist in one or more taxonomic groups of terrestrial and freshwater living animals. The geographical range of species within the Western Palearctic fauna have been compared in order to draw distributional patterns useful for zoogeographical analysis. A revised classification and nomenclature of these patterns is proposed, and five main groups of chorotypes are defined on the basis of the shape and size of the range: 1. widespread in all or part of the Holarctic region; 2. widespread in Europe; 3. widespread in the Mediterranean countries; 4. Afrotropical or Oriental (= Indomalayan), but also occurring in Mediterranean countries; 5. widespread in the Eastern Palearctic region or in the Saharo-Sindian transitional zone, but also occurring in peripheral areas of the