Ripuarian Franks
Ripuarian Franks, also known as Rhenish or Rhineland Franks, and also commonly referred to using the Latin plurals Ripuarii or Ribuarii, were the Franks who established themselves in and around the formerly Roman city of Cologne, on the Rhine river in what is now Germany. Until the 1950s the Ribuarii were seen as the easternmost of two distinct "sub tribes" of the Franks who ruled two large neighbouring regions in northern Gaul after the collapse of the Roman empire in the 5th century AD. According to this tradition, which continues to be influential, the Ribuarii ruled not just the Rhineland area near Cologne, but all or most of what would later become the Austrasian or Lotharingian region – stretching from present day southern Belgium to the Rhine in present day Germany and the Netherlands.