The left bank was predominantly Catholic, while on the right bank about half the population was Protestant. The great bulk of the population was ethnically German, although some villages and towns in the northern part (Province of Jülich-Cleves-Berg) were more oriented toward the Netherlands. On the western and southern frontiers (especially in the Saarland) resided smaller French-speaking communities, while the industrial region of the Ruhr housed recent Polish migrants from the eastern provinces of the Empire.