The family Pteromalidae (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea) is reviewed with the goal of providing nomenclatural changes and morphological diagnoses in preparation for a new molecular phylogeny and a book on world fauna that will contain keys to identification. Most subfamilies and some tribes of Pteromalidae are elevated to the family level or transferred elsewhere in the superfamily. The resulting classification is a compromise, with the aim of preserving the validity and diagnosability of other, well-established families of Chalcidoidea and forming the following families: Cleonymidae, Coelocybidae, Epichrysomallidae, Eunotidae, Heydeniidae, Megastigmidae, Neanastatidae, Pirenidae, Spalangiidae and Systasidae. From the methodological point of view, the research was conducted through the adoption of bibliometric approaches and content analysis. Bibliometrics is guided by the principle of analyzing scientific or technical activity through quantitative studies of publications, that is, through this approach that used databases, articles were published from 1979 to 2022 in indexed scientific research, scientific chapters of books, banks of theses, university dissertations, national and international scientific articles, scientific magazines, documents and even in general magazines when considered of interest. The main terms used were: Hymenoptera Parasitic, parasitoid, hosts and microhymenoptera.