In this review we combine various sources of information from community assemblages to studies in comparative phylogeography, in order to understand the processes that are responsible for the current distribution of hosts and parasites. By using Apodemus sylvaticus and its parasites in the western Palaearctic as an illustrating model, we highlight that (i) parasite species richness increases with host biogeographical range; (ii) the geographic range of parasite and host species is positively correlated with the local population abundance; (iii) there is covariance between local species richness of assemblages of hosts and corresponding assemblages of parasites; (iv) host and parasite species in depauperate assemblages constitute subset samples occurring in richer assemblages, related to the life cycle of the parasites and the phylogeography of the host; (v) the presence/absence of certain parasite species can inform about host ecology and geographic origin; (vi) congruence between parasite and host phylogenetic trees can be seen as the co-evolutionary complement of the macroecological patterns. Eventually, we suggest that all these patterns are related and provide an overview and a framework for further geographic studies of host-parasite interactions.