[3] The demoiselle crane was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.

Albin explained that: "This Bird is called Demoiselles by reason of certain ways of acting that it has, wherein it seems to imitate the Gestures of a Woman who affects a Grace in her Walking, Obeisances, and Dancing".

[6] Linnaeus also cited the English naturalist George Edwards who had described and illustrated the "Demoiselle of Numidia" in 1750.

[8] The demoiselle crane is now placed in the genus Grus that was introduced in 1760 by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson.

[10] Some authorities place this species together with the closely related blue crane (Grus paradisea) in the genus Anthropoides.

The demoiselle crane breeds in central Eurasia from the Black Sea east to Mongolia and northeast China.

[16][17] The demoiselle crane is known as the koonj/kurjan in the languages of North India, and figure prominently in the literature, poetry and idiom of the region.

Metaphorical references are also often made to the koonj for people who have ventured far from home or undertaken hazardous journeys.

[3] In the ancient story of Valmiki, the composer of the Hindu epic Ramayana, it is claimed that his first verse was inspired by the sight of a hunter kill the male of a pair of demoiselle[citation needed] cranes that were courting.

Since tradition held that all poetry prior to this moment had been revealed rather than created by man, this verse concerning the demoiselle cranes is regarded as the first human-composed meter.