Dinka people

The Dinka tribe (Dinka: Jiɛ̈ɛ̈ŋ) are a Nilotic ethnic group native to South Sudan. The Dinka mostly live along the Nile, from Bor to Renk, in the region of Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile (two out of three Provinces that were formerly part of southern Sudan), and the Abyei Area of the Ngok Dinka in South Sudan.

They number around 4.5 million, according to the 2008 Sudan census, constituting about 40% of the population of that country and the largest ethnic tribe in South Sudan. The Dinka refer to themselves as Muonyjang (singular) and jieng (plural). They make up one of the branches of Lake Nilotes (mainly sedentary agropastoral peoples of the Nile Valley and African Great Lakes region who speak Nilotic languages, including the Nuer and Luo).

Dinka are noted for their height, and, along with the Tutsi of Rwanda, they are the tallest group in Africa. Roberts and Bainbridge reported an average height of 182.6 cm (5 ft 11.9 in) in a sample of 52 Dinka Agaar and 181.3 cm (5 ft 11.4 in) in 227 Dinka Ruweng measured in 1953–1954. However, the stature of Dinka males later declined, possibly as a consequence of undernutrition and conflicts. An anthropometric survey of Dinka men, war refugees in Ethiopia, published in 1995, found a mean height of 176.4 cm (5 ft 9.4 in). Other studies of comparative height data and nutrition placed the Dinka as the world's tallest.

The Dinka people have no centralised political authority. Instead their clans are independent but interlinked. Some traditionally provide ritual chiefs, known as the "masters of the fishing spear" or beny bith, who provide leadership and are at least in part hereditary.