The Lunda (Balunda, Luunda, Ruund) originate in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo along the Kalanyi River and form the Kingdom of Lunda in the seventeenth century under their ruler, Mwata Yamvo or Mwaant Yav, with their capital at Musumba.

From here they spread widely through Katanga and into Eastern Angola, northwestern Zambia (the Kanongesha-Lunda and the Ishindi-Lunda) and the Luapula valley of Zambia (the Eastern Lunda or Kazembe-Lunda).

The Lunda are allied to the Luba, and their migrations and conquests spawn a number of tribes such as the Luvale of the upper Zambezi and the Kasanje on the upper Kwango River of Angola.

Today the Lunda people comprise hundreds of subgroups such as the Akosa, Imbangala and Ndembu, and number approximately five hundred thousand in Angola, seven hundred and fifty thousand  in the Congo, and two hundred thousand in Zambia.

Most speak the Lunda language, Chilunda, except for the Kazembe-Lunda who have adopted the Bemba language of their neighbors.

The Lunda people's heartland is rich in the natural resources of rivers, lakes, forests and savannah.

Its people are fishermen and farmers, and they prosper.

They grow maize, millet, yams, sorghum, squash, beans, sweet potatoes, oil palms and tobacco.

Their traders come into contact with the Portuguese, and Arab and Swahili traders of East Africa.

They play a large role in the slave and ivory trade that moves goods and people from central Africa to the coasts for export.

The people of the Lunda Kingdom believed n Nzambi as a Supreme Creator of the world who created everything of existence on earth.

Their religion does not address Nzambi directly, but through the spirits of their ancestors.