The Twa are a group of indigenous Central African foragers tribes. These cultural groups were formerly called Pygmies by European writers, but the term is no longer preferred based on its cultural and geographic inaccuracy, as well as being seen as pejorative. Cultural groups are being reclassified by themselves based on their function in society, lineage, and land ties.

The African Pygmies are a group of ethnicities native to Central Africa, mostly the Congo Basin, traditionally subsisting on a forager and hunter-gatherer lifestyle. They are divided into three roughly geographic groups:The western Bambenga, or Mbenga, the eastern Bambuti, or Mbuti, of the Congo basin (DRC) the central and southern Batwa, or Twa. The more widely scattered Southern Twa are also grouped under the term Pygmoid.