• Kingdom Animalia (all animals)
• Phylum Chordata
• Subphylum Vertebrata (animals with backbones)
• Class Mammalia (warm-blooded animals with fur and mammary glands)
• Order Primates (which is comprised of 11 families, including lemurs, monkeys, marmosets, lesser apes, great apes, and humans)
  • Family Pongidae (the great apes, including gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans)
    • Genus Pongo (orangutans)
      • Species pygmaeus
        • Subspecies (perhaps a subspecies) P. p. pygmaeus (with a round face and dark red hair; found in Borneo)
        • Subspecies (perhaps a subspecies) P. p. abelii (with a narrow face and paler hair; found in Sumatra)
    • Genus Gorilla (gorillas)
      • Species gorilla
        • Subspecies G. g. gorilla - the western lowland gorilla (found in Cameroon, Central African Republic, Gabon, Congo, and Equatorial Guinea)
        • Subspecies G. g. graueri - the eastern lowland gorilla (found in eastern Zaire)
        • Subspecies G. g. beringei - the mountain gorilla (found in Zaire, Rwanda, and Uganda)
    • Genus Pan (chimpanzees and bonobos)
      • Species troglodytes - the Chimpanzee
        • Subspecies P. t. verus - the western subspecies (found in Côte d'Ivoire, plus some small populations in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia).
        • Subspecies P. t. troglodytes - the central subspecies (found mostly in Gabon, also from eastern Nigeria to the Ubanghi River and south to the Zaire River).
        • Subspecies P. t. schweinfurthi - the eastern subspecies studied by Jane Goodall (found from southern Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania, and from there northwards to Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and southern Sudan).
      • Species paniscus - the Bonobo or pygmy chimp, from Zaire, along the Zaire river.
  • Family Hylobatidae (meaning "tree dweller" - the lesser apes, including gibbons and siamangs)
  • Genus Hylobates (with 9 species of gibbons; since gibbons do not cross bodies of water, major rivers isolate each of the species.)
    • Species H. agilus - the agile gibbon (or dark-handed gibbon)
    • Species H. concolor - the crested gibbon (or the black gibbon or the white-cheeked gibbon)
    • Species H. hoolock - the Hoolock gibbon
    • Species H. klossii - Kloss' gibbon (or Mentawai gibbon)
    • Species H. lar - the white-handed gibbon or the common gibbon (consisting of three subspecies)
    • Species H. moloch - the Javan gibbon (or silvery gibbon, or white-browed gibbon)
    • Species H. muelleri - the Bornean gibbon
    • Species H. pileatus - the pileated gibbon (or capped gibbon)
    • Species H. syndactylus - the Siamang (the biggest gibbon, with dark fur, an inflatable throat sac, and a very loud call)

A cladogram of the greater apes; a branching diagram that depicts species divergence from common ancestors.

The chimpanzee is the animal that is closest to people genetically; people and chimps have very similar DNA (about 98% of human and chimpanzee DNA is identical). Genetic studies show that chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor.