A paramount chief is the highest-level traditional (usually tribal) chief or political leader in a region or country typically administered politically with a chief-based system. Chief can refer to The chief engineer of a naval vessel or anyone with the rank Chief Warrant Officer in the Canadian Forces In heraldry, a chief is a band of colour or metal making up the top (usually the top third or slightly less) of a shield. ... A country, a land, or a state, is a geographical area that connotes an independent political entity, with its own government, administration, laws, often a constitution, police, military, tax rules, and population, who are one anothers countrymen. ...

The word was introduced by westerners, often in colonial times, as a generic term rendering various autochtonous institutions, which may vary considerably according to each community's culture and history - follow the links in the (probably incomplete) lists below.

However the term has also often been given legal sanction in order to use tribal institutions for indirect rule, sometimes even in post-independence republics - rather like the British, Dutch and other colonizing powers did, often succesfully, with princely states, mainly in the East Indies. Indirect rule is a policy which British colonial policy was based; its purpose was to incorporate the local power structure into the British administrative structure. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

Eastern African paramount chieftainships and titles

• laibon of all the Maasai in Kenya (not in Tanzania)

A Maasai tribesman The Maasai or Masai, an indigenous African tribe of semi-nomadic people located primarily in Kenya and northern Tanzania, are probably one of the most familiar tribes of East Africa. ...

Southern African paramount chieftainships and titles

• Kgôsikgolo
  • of the Bamalete
  • of each of the 7 major tribes of the Tswana, all in Botswana
• The paramount chief position is most prominent in the nation state of Swaziland.