Viking raids in the Rhineland
The area known today as the Rhineland begins at the confluence of the Moselle and the Rhine and ends at Emmerich, where the Rhine divides into the Lek and the Waal to form a delta. In the east, the Rhineland ends close to the Rhine itself, being bounded by low mountain ranges such as the Siebengebirge or Bergisches Land. To the west its boundary is less well defined, but in general parlance it runs beyond the present state border with the Netherlands, i.e. east of the Meuse. Because the modern state of Rhineland-Palatinate lies south of the Moselle, the low mountain range of the Eifel north of the river is usually seen as belonging to the Rhineland. Areas south of the Moselle, such as the Hunsrück, are also considered to be part of the Rhineland.
Franks
The Rhineland Franks who lived near the stretch of the Rhine from roughly Mainz to Duisburg, the region of the city of Cologne, are often considered separately from the Salians, and sometimes in modern texts referred to as Ripuarian Franks. The Ravenna Cosmography suggests that "Francia Renensis" included the old "civitas" of the Ubii, in Germania II (Germania Inferior), but also the northern part of Germania I (Germania Superior), including Mainz. Like the Salians they appear in Roman records both as raiders and as contributors to military units. Unlike the Salii, there is no record of when, if ever, the empire officially accepted their residence within the empire. They eventually succeeded to hold the city of Cologne, and at some point seem to have acquired the name Ripuarians, which may have meant "river people". In any case a Merovingian legal code was called the "Lex Ribuaria", but it probably applied in all the older Frankish lands, including the original Salian areas.