Novalike stars are distributed uniformly to 60 degrees latitude, and relatively small number of stars of this type is located in the galactic equator.The differences of the distributions of novae and novalike stars have a simple explanation.
All nova-like variables have some properties in common: they do not show large outburst activity (though they may be found in "high" or "low," "on" or "off" states), so they are neither novae nor dwarf novae, but in one way or another they look like a dwarf nova in some stage of activity.
