Dierk Lange was born 1941 in Bensheim-Auerbach in Southern Germany. He went to school in Hamburg from 1947 to 1961 and obtained the Abitur there at the Kirchenpauer Gymnasium. After one year of military service he left the army as a conscientious objector, joined the Service Civil International and served in Southern France for the remaining three months.

In 1962 he began his studies at the Sorbonne in Paris where he engaged in various fields including Political Science, Sociology, African Sociology, Anthropology, Islamic Studies, and African History. His African interests were further stimulated by an adventurous trip through the whole of the African continent from Marokko to Botswana lasting for one year. The journey was done in an old 2 CV in 1967-8. His compagne de route was Michka Sachnine who later became a specialist of Yoruba.

Back in Paris he continued his studies, witnessed the événements de soixante huit, got his MA in 1969 and finished his PhD in 1974 with a thesis titled: "Contribution à l'histoire médiévale du Kanem-Bornu" directed by Raymond Mauny (later published as Le Diwan des sultans du Kanem-Bornu: Chronologie et histoire d'un royaume africain).

Having become affiliated to the Frobenius Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, he received a research grant from the DFG (German Research Foundation) to continue his studies of Arabic sources concerning African history in Cairo. He stayed in Cairo from 1974 to the beginning of 1980.