Humans

Since they outnumber most other races, usually are amongst the most technologically advanced and organized of the races, human beings remain the dominant race in the world. Most islands are inhabited by humans, even in the Grand Line, where most of the stronger races such as the fishmen and giants are found.

Appearance
Humans within the series are generally the same as in real life, however they come in several sizes ranging from "normal" to much taller (such as in the case of Jerry). Some, such as Edward Newgate and Gekko Moriah, are extra large for human standards, Moriah being as far as 692 cm (22'7") tall, far surpassing an average human's height by roughly five to six times. However, these humans are considered to be no more than "oversized ants" in the face of true giants. These large humans are roughly the same size as Wotans. Other humans have features that are unique, such as Ussop's long nose, which led to people mistaking him as a fishman in Cocoyashi Village.

Differences between humans vary greatly; islands not allied with the World Government form a number of tribes including (but not exclusive to) the Dwarves, Minkmen, Longarm Tribe, Longleg Tribe, and the Snakeneck Tribe. Other tribes are expected to exist as ape-like humans including Masira, Shoujou and the Coffee Monkeys have also appeared; Masira himself claimed openly to be human and not ape although was not insulted when called a "monkey". As of the Thriller Bark Arc, humans with demonic features have also appear in the storyline, mainly in the Impel Down Arc. Even amongst families, size and proportional differences may occur, the most prominent example being the Gorgon Sisters.

Biology
Mostly, humans are the same as in real life. The strange tribes of the Grand Line are also human, however they have significant appearance alterations from "normal" humans. Their advantages over normal humans have yet to be explained. It has yet been explained how large sized humans occur in humans even amongst families that produce normal sized humans. Boa Sandersonia and Marigold were normal human-sized in the past but currently stand noticeably above the size of normal humans, while their oldest sister, once only a little shorter than them, remained normal, if above-average, human size. Amongst the Kuja in particular, there is a notable phenomenon that every child born is female and no males are ever produced. The alterations of other tribes' biology like this have yet to be explained.

Humans can however breed with merfolk to produce a human-merfolk child. However further interbreeding with humans removed all apparent merfolk features. After just two generations, the only thing that remains is a "human" with an incredible swimming ability. Since giants are a race of extremely large humans, which can breed with fishmen to produce a wotan, one can presume fishmen also breed with normal humans, although fishmen/human half-breeds have yet to appear in the storyline. Humans, fishmen, and merfolk also share the same blood types.

Inter-species Relationships
The weakness of the humans in the One Piece world often makes other races such as the fishmen come to think lowly of them. Often this reaches to the point where they inflict heavy racism onto Humans themselves, although not all fishmen typically think this. Often this is met by humans with returned racism towards the fishmen, sometimes leading to bloodshed. Part of the problem is that Humans tend to think of fishmen and the mermen as nothing more than fish, dismissing them as "men" thus alienating any chances of them being viewed as equals with humans.

Amongst the humans themselves, there is an apparent problem with the non-World Government allied tribes. Their freakish appearances (such as having long arms or legs) are often a lure for kidnapping crews at Sabaody Archipelago, who sell them as slaves because their selling rate is much higher than a regular human. These tribes and races caught up in slavery are often sold for a higher price then "normal" humans. humans themselves are worth an average of 500,000 in the slave market. Members of these tribes may even regard "normal" humans as freaks due to the fact that to where they come from, their appearances are normal and the "normal" humans are not.

In stark contrast to the mermen and fishmen, giants are respectfully regarded as "men" by humans.

Overall Strength
Most of the inhabitants of the One Piece world are normal humans and are one of the weakest races on the planet. While the average human is as weak as in real life, with enough training they are able to train themselves to be able to do incredible stunts such as using Super-Human Strength and incredible abilities. Normal humans are more likely to consider the usage of Devil Fruits than any other creature in the world, and are the leaders in Devil Fruit research.

Some humans are fortunate to be more than twice the size of a normal human being. Naturally, with no training, these tall humans are amongst the strongest men and women in the world and their size makes other humans reconsider attacking them. Even then, compared with true giants, their size is nothing, as to giants these tall humans are nothing but overgrown ants. An example of this would be when the Kairiki Destroyers of the Franky Family (enormous by human standards) were totally outmatched in combat by Oimo and Kāshī, who are actual giants.

While the normal human is physically much weaker than races like giants and fishmen, their wide range of attacks, skills and abilities make up for them to be more versatile fighters. And even with the physical strength of other races taken into account, there are a handful of humans that surpass even their great advantages against them, although it it is not always in physical strength but usually in more tactical thinking.

Trivia

 * In the World of One Piece, humans can live up to at least 139 years (i.e. Kureha). Their average age seems to be younger, however, as Whitebeard at an age of only 72 years was heavily weakened compared to his prime.
 * While all races are "man", humans in particular seem to be more inclined to decide what the meaning of "man" is. Thus it would seem that within the One Piece world, to be called "human" and "man" may in some cases not mean the same thing. In particular the World Nobles may to use discriminative terminology to describe their slaves as "barely human" and will go so far as to burn the hoof of the dragon onto their slaves flesh - from this day forward the slaves are forever known as "less than human".
 * Tony Tony Chopper classifies himself as a "man" because of his Devil Fruit abilities of the Hito Hito no Mi, although he is a reindeer by species.
 * The existence of strange tribes humans can be likened to the documentation of early explorers and researchers. They often returned from places like Africa, Asia, and the Americas with accounts of tribes who have manipulated their appearances in strange or even what would be considered to such men as grotesque ways.
 * Ironically, despite being known as the weakest species, most of the strongest characters displayed in One Piece are in fact human.