Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate is located in western Germany covering an area of and a population of 4.05 million inhabitants, the seventh-most populous German state. Mainz is the state capital and largest city, while other major cities include Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Koblenz, Trier, Kaiserslautern, and Worms. Rhineland-Palatinate is surrounded by the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Saarland, Baden-Württemberg, and Hesse. It also borders three foreign countries: France, Luxembourg and Belgium.
Ripuarian Franks
Few historical details are known before the Rhineland kingdom eventually became an important part of the Merovingian Frankish empire in the sub-kingdom known as Austrasia, which also included the original Germanic speaking Salian region. Austrasia included not only the Rhineland-Palatinate, but apparently the whole of the Germania Inferior (re-named in the late Roman empire as Germania II) and Gallia Belgica II. The border between Austrasia and Neustria was the Silva Carbonaria in modern Wallonia, but the exact definition of this forest region is now unclear.