The Papilionoidea of the Philippines and Palawan were studied with different statistical methods to show distribution and faunistic similarities. The results can be summarized as follows: a) Palawan is significantly different from the Philippines, while the similarities are virtually undistinguishable from Borneo and Malaysia; b) the high percentage of taxa endemic to the Philippines and the low faunistic similarity with the surrounding areas of Malaysia, Borneo and Taiwan demonstrate that the butterflies of the Philippines are well characterized; c) the total number of species on each island is significantly correlated with the island area and less influenced by the distance from the source‐pools; d) the total number of endemic taxa on each island is highly correlated with the island area; e) there are different behaviours in the relation species‐area in each family.