The Kru or Kroo are a West African ethnic group who are indigenous to eastern Liberia and migrated and settled along various points of the West African coast, notably Freetown, Sierra Leone, but also the Ivorian and Nigerian coasts. The Kru were famous for their skills in navigating and sailing the Atlantic. The Kru languages constitute a branch of the Niger-Congo family.

The Kru are thought to have entered the country from the northeast in the 15th to 17th century. There are about 24 subgroups with dialectal and cultural differences. Their political organization was traditionally not centralized, each subgroup inhabiting several autonomous towns. Within each town social organization is based on exogamous patrilineal clans.