Anancus was named by Aymard in 1855. This animal's species type is Anancus arvernensis(Croizet & Jobert 1928). Anacus was assigned to the suborder Elephantiformes by Jeheskel Shoshani, Ph.D. and P. Tassy in 1996. It was then assigned to the family Gomphotheriidae by Carroll in 1988. It was assigned to the family Elephantidae by McKenna and Bell in 1997 and by Lambert and Shoshani in 1998. Anancus was then assigned to the superfamily of Elephantoidea by Kalb and Froelich in 1995 and Shoshani and Tassy in 2005. In 2009, L. Hautier, H. T. Mackaye, F. Lihoreau, P. Tassy, P. Vignaud and M. Brunet assigned it collectively to the subfamily Anancinae