The term Dinaric comes from the name of a mountain called Dinara, on the border of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In geography, it is used to describe the Dinaric Alps mountain chain.

In physical anthropology, the Dinaric people are a group of humans originating from the Dinaric mountains, characterized by broad face, relatively flat skull, tall stocky build, and long and more or less inclined nose and short arms. There is a fair mix of brunettes, blonds and brown-haired individuals in the Dinaric group and their skins are usually rosey to olive. Male members have a robust, or rustic look while the females tend to be more masculine. They share some affinities with the Alpines, Kypchaks and the Iranians and are sometimes indistinguishable from some Anatolians and Caucasus groups.

Slavic language speakers constitute the majority of Dinarics while there are also large numbers of Romanian, Albanian and Turkic language speakers. It is estimated that more than 60% of the population in the Balkans and in the north of Italy are Dinarics, and up to 30% in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria and Ukraine.