Rhineland

Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common geography, historical, social and cultural identity. The concept of "Central Europe" appeared in the 19th century.

Ripuarian or Rhineland Franks were one of the two main groupings of early Frankish people, and specifically it was the name eventually applied to the tribes who settled in the old Roman territory of the Ubii, with its capital at Cologne on the Rhine river in modern Germany. Their western neighbours were the Salii, or "Salian Franks", who were named already in late Roman records, and settled with imperial permission within the Roman Empire in what is today the southern part of the Netherlands, and Belgium, and later expanded their influence into the northern part of France above the Loire river, creating the Frankish empire of Francia.

The Salian Franks, also called the Salians, were a northwestern subgroup of the early Franks who appear in the historical record in the fourth and fifth centuries. They lived west of the Lower Rhine in what was then the Roman Empire and today the Netherlands and Belgium.

Austrasia was a territory which formed the north-eastern section of the Kingdom of the Franks from the 6th to 8th centuries, ruled by the Frankish Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties during the Early Middle Ages. It was centred on the Meuse, Middle Rhine, and the Moselle rivers, and was the original territory of the Franks, including both the so-called Salians and Rhineland Franks, which Clovis I, King of the Franks (481–511) conquered after first taking control of the bordering part of Roman Gaul, which is sometimes described in this period as Neustria.

The High Middle Ages, or high medieval period, was the period of European history that lasted from AD 1000 to 1300. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended around AD 1500.

Lotharingia was a short-lived medieval successor kingdom of the Carolingian Empire. As a more durable later duchy of the Ottonian Empire, it comprised present-day Lorraine (France), Luxembourg, Saarland (Germany), Netherlands, and the eastern half of Belgium, along with parts of today's North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany), Rhineland-Palatinate (Germany) and Nord (France). It was named after King Lothair II, who received this territory after his father Lothair I's kingdom of Middle Francia was divided among his three sons in 855.

The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.

The Electoral Rhenish Circle was an Imperial Circle of the Holy Roman Empire, created in 1512.

The Cisrhenian Republic was a planned client state during the French Revolutionary Wars in 1797 on the Left Bank of the Rhine under occupation by France, where the Coup of 18 Fructidor caused a decision to annex the area instead.

The First French Empire, officially the French Republic, then the French Empire after 1809, also known as Napoleonic France, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. It lasted from 18 May 1804 to 11 April 1814 and again briefly from 20 March 1815 to 7 July 1815.

The Province of Jülich-Cleves-Berg was a province of Prussia from 1815 to 1822. Jülich-Cleves-Berg was established in 1815 from part restored and part newly annexed lands by the Kingdom of Prussia from France's Grand Duchy of Berg. Jülich-Cleves-Berg was dissolved in 1822 when it was merged with the Grand Duchy of the Lower Rhine to form Rhine Province. Cologne was the provincial capital.

The Grand Duchy of the Lower Rhine, or simply known as the Lower Rhine Province, was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and existed from 1815 to 1822.

Deutsches Eck is the name of a promontory in Koblenz, Germany, where the Mosel river joins the Rhine. Named after a local commandry of the Teutonic Order, it became known for a monumental equestrian statue of William I, first German Emperor, erected in 1897 in appreciation of his role in the unification of Germany. One of many Emperor William monuments raised in the Prussian Rhine Province, it was destroyed in World War II and only the plinth was preserved as a memorial. Following German reunification, a replica of the statue was erected on the pedestal after controversial discussions in 1993. It is today a Koblenz monument and a popular tourist attraction.

Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a small landlocked country in Western Europe. It borders Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France to the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembourg, is one of the four institutional seats of the European Union and the seat of several EU institutions, notably the Court of Justice of the European Union, the highest judicial authority. Luxembourg's culture, people, and languages are highly intertwined with its French and German neighbors; while Luxembourgish is the only national language of the Luxembourgish people, French is the only legal language, and all three — Luxembourgish, French and German — are considered official languages and are used for administrative matters in the country.

Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of 30,528 km2 (11,787 sq mi) and has a population of more than 11.5 million, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe, with a density of 376/km2 (970/sq mi). Belgium is part of an area known as the Low Countries, historically a somewhat larger region than the Benelux group of states, as it also included parts of northern France. The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, Bruges, Namur, and Leuven.

The Bergisches Land is a low mountain range in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, east of the Rhine and south of the Ruhr. The landscape is shaped by woods, meadows, rivers and creeks and contains over twenty artificial lakes. Wuppertal is the biggest town, while the southern part has economic and socio-cultural ties to Cologne. Wuppertal and the neighbouring cities of Remscheid and Solingen form the Bergisches Städtedreieck.

Hesse or Hessia, officially the State of Hesse, is a state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major historic cities are Darmstadt and Kassel. With an area of 21,114.73 square kilometers and a population of over six million, it ranks seventh and fifth, respectively, among the sixteen German states. Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Germany's second-largest metropolitan area, is mainly located in Hesse.

The Hunsrück is a long, triangular, pronounced upland in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is bounded by the valleys of the Moselle-Saar (north-to-west), the Nahe (south), and the Rhine (east). It is continued by the Taunus mountains, past the Rhine and by the Eifel past the Moselle. To the south of the Nahe is a lower, hilly country forming the near bulk of the Palatinate region and all of the, smaller, Saarland. Below its north-east corner is Koblenz.

The Eifel is a low mountain range in western Germany and eastern Belgium. It occupies parts of southwestern North Rhine-Westphalia, northwestern Rhineland-Palatinate and the southern area of the German-speaking Community of Belgium.

Between Bingen and Bonn, Germany, the river Rhine flows as the Middle Rhine through the Rhine Gorge, a formation created by erosion, which happened at about the same rate as an uplift in the region, leaving the river at about its original level, and the surrounding lands raised. This gorge is quite deep, about 130 metres (430 ft) from the top of the rocks down to the average water-line.

Bingen am Rhein is a town in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

The Neckar is a 362-kilometre-long (225 mi) river in Germany, mainly flowing through the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, with a short section through Hesse. The Neckar is a major right tributary of the Rhine. Rising in the Schwarzwald-Baar-Kreis near Schwenningen in the Schwenninger Moos conservation area at a height of 706 m (2,316 ft) above sea level, it passes through Rottweil, Rottenburg am Neckar, Kilchberg, Tübingen, Wernau, Nürtingen, Plochingen, Esslingen, Stuttgart, Ludwigsburg, Marbach, Heilbronn and Heidelberg, before discharging on average 145 m3/s (5,100 cu ft/s) of water into the Rhine at Mannheim, at 95 m (312 ft) above sea level, making the Neckar its 4th largest tributary, and the 10th largest river in Germany. Since 1968, the Neckar has been navigable for cargo ships via 27 locks for about 200 kilometres (120 mi) upstream from Mannheim to the river port of Plochingen, at the confluence with the Fils.

Cologne is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 million people in the urban region. Centered on the left (west) bank of the Rhine, Cologne is about 35 km (22 mi) southeast of NRW's state capital Düsseldorf and 25 km (16 mi) northwest of Bonn, the former capital of West Germany.

Ahr is a river in Germany, a left tributary of the Rhine. Its source is at an elevation of approximately 470 metres (1,540 ft) above sea level in Blankenheim in the Eifel, in the cellar of a timber-frame house near the castle of Blankenheim. After 18 kilometres (11 mi) it crosses from North Rhine-Westphalia into Rhineland-Palatinate.

The Ardennes, also known as the Ardennes Forest or Forest of Ardennes, is a region of extensive forests, rough terrain, rolling hills and ridges primarily in Belgium and Luxembourg, extending into Germany and France. Geologically, the range is a western extension of the Eifel; both were raised during the Givetian age of the Devonian, as were several other named ranges of the same greater range.

The Eburones were a Gallic-Germanic tribe dwelling in the northeast of Gaul, in what is now the southern Netherlands, eastern Belgium and the German Rhineland, in the period immediately preceding the Roman conquest of the region. Though living in Gaul, they were also described as being both Belgae and Germani.

The Mattiaci were by Tacitus recorded as an ancient Germanic tribe and related to the Chatti, their Germanic neighbors to the east. There is no clear definition of what the tribe's name meant. The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography suggests that the name is derived from a combination of 'matte', meaning 'a meadow', and 'ach', signifying water or a bath.

The Chatti were an ancient Germanic tribe whose homeland was near the upper Weser (Visurgis), whose name might mean "pursuers". They lived in central and northern Hesse and southern Lower Saxony, along the upper reaches of that river and in the valleys and mountains of the Eder and Fulda regions, a district approximately corresponding to Hesse-Kassel, though probably somewhat more extensive. They settled within the region in the first century BC. According to Tacitus, the Batavians and Cananefates of his time, tribes living within the Roman Empire, were descended from part of the Chatti, who left their homeland after an internal quarrel drove them out, to take up new lands at the mouth of the Rhine.

Gaius Julius Caesar, was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and subsequently became dictator from 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.

The Franks were a germanic people who were first mentioned by name in 3rd-century Roman sources, living near the Lower Rhine, on the northern frontier of the Roman Empire. Later, Romanized Frankish dynasties based within the collapsing Western Roman Empire, became the rulers of the whole region between the rivers Loire and Rhine. They subsequently imposed power over many other post-Roman kingdoms both inside and outside the old empîre. Beginning with Charlemagne in 800, Frankish rulers were given recognition by the Catholic Church as successors to the old emperors.

The Carolingian Empire (800–888) was a large Frankish-dominated empire in western and central Europe during the Early Middle Ages. It was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty, which had ruled as kings of the Franks since 751 and as kings of the Lombards in Italy from 774. In 800, the Frankish king Charlemagne was crowned emperor in Rome by Pope Leo III in an effort to transfer the Roman Empire from the Byzantine Empire to western Europe. The Carolingian Empire is considered the first phase in the history of the Holy Roman Empire.

East Francia or the Kingdom of the East Franks was a successor state of Charlemagne's empire ruled by the Carolingian dynasty until 911. It was created through the Treaty of Verdun (843) which divided the former empire into three kingdoms.

Lotharingia was a short-lived medieval successor kingdom of the Carolingian Empire. As a more durable later duchy of the Ottonian Empire, it comprised present-day Lorraine (France), Luxembourg, Saarland (Germany), Netherlands, and the eastern half of Belgium, along with parts of today's North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany), Rhineland-Palatinate (Germany) and Nord (France). It was named after King Lothair II, who received this territory after his father Lothair I's kingdom of Middle Francia was divided among his three sons in 855.

The Swedish invasion of the Holy Roman Empire or the Swedish Intervention in the Thirty Years' War is a historically accepted division of the Thirty Years' War. It was a military conflict that took place between 1630 and 1635, during the course of the Thirty Years' War. It was a major turning point of the war: the Protestant cause, previously on the verge of defeat, won several major victories and changed the direction of the War. The Habsburg-Catholic coalition, previously in the ascendant, was significantly weakened as a result of the gains the Protestant cause made. It is sometimes considered to be an independent conflict by historians.

Bacharach is a town in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Rhein-Nahe, whose seat is in Bingen am Rhein, although that town is not within its bounds.

The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.