In medieval Europe, a march or mark was, in broad terms, any kind of borderland, as opposed to a state's "heartland". More specifically, a march was a border between realms or a neutral buffer zone under joint control of two states in which different laws might apply. In both of these senses, marches served a political purpose, such as providing warning of military incursions or regulating cross-border trade.
Marches gave rise to the titles marquess (masculine) or marchioness (feminine).
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The Khazars (/ˈxɑːzɑːrz/) were a semi-nomadic Turkic people who established a major commercial empire in the late 6th century CE spanning modern southeastern Russia, southern Ukraine, and western Kazakhstan. It was the most powerful polity to emerge from the break-up of the Western Turkic Khaganate. Astride a major artery of commerce between Eastern Europe and Southwestern Asia, Khazaria became one of the foremost trading empires of the early medieval world, commanding the western marches of the Silk Road and playing a key commercial role as a crossroad between China, the Middle East, and Kievan Rus'. For some three centuries (c. 650–965), the Khazars dominated the vast area extending from the Volga-Don steppes to the eastern Crimea and the northern Caucasus.
Although they were likely a confederation of different Turkic-speaking peoples, the precise origins and nature of the Khazars are uncertain, since there is no surviving record in the Khazar language and the state was multilingual and polyethnic. Their native religion is thought to have been Tengrism, like that of the North Caucasian Huns and other Turkic peoples, although their multiethnic population seems to have included pagans, Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Although there is evidence that the ruling elite of the Khazars had converted to Rabbinic Judaism in the 8th century, the scope of the conversion to Judaism within the khanate remains uncertain.
The March of Tuscany was a march of the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages. Located in northwestern central Italy, it bordered the Papal States to the south, the Ligurian Sea to the west and Lombardy to the north. It comprised a collection of counties, largely in the valley of the River Arno, originally centered on Lucca.
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The Duchy of Gascony or Duchy of Vasconia was an ethnic Basque duchy located in present-day southwestern France and northeastern Spain, an area encompassing the modern region of Gascony. The Duchy of Gascony, then known as Vasconia, was originally a Frankish march formed to hold sway over the Basques. However, the duchy went through different periods, from its early years with its distinctively Basque element to the merger in personal union with the Duchy of Aquitaine to the later period as a dependency of the Plantagenet kings of England.
Gascony was under continuous English rule for approximately 300 years, from 1152 to 1453. Charles VII of France reconquered the territory as a final act of the Hundred Years' War and the northern part of the territory was annexed by the Kingdom of France in 1453. The corresponding portion within the Iberian Peninsula became the Kingdom of Navarre.
A buffer zone, also historically known as a march, is a neutral area that lies between two or more bodies of land; usually, between countries. Depending on the type of buffer zone, it may serve to separate regions or conjoin them.Common types of buffer zones are demilitarized zones, border zones and certain restrictive easement zones and green belts. Such zones may be comprised by a sovereign state, forming a buffer state.
Buffer zones have various purposes, politically or otherwise. They can be set up for a multitude of reasons, such as to prevent violence, protect the environment, shield residential and commercial zones from industrial accidents or natural disasters, or even isolate prisons. Buffer zones often result in large uninhabited regions that are themselves noteworthy in many increasingly developed or crowded parts of the world that unintentionally create a de facto wildlife sanctuary.
The Saxon Eastern March (German: Sächsische Ostmark) was a march of the Holy Roman Empire from the 10th until the 12th century. The term "eastern march" stems from the Latin term marchia Orientalis and originally could refer to either a march created on the eastern frontier of the East Frankish duchy of Saxony or another on the eastern border of the Duchy of Bavaria: the Bavarian marchia Orientalis (documented as Ostarrîchi in 996), corresponding to later Austria.
The Margravate or Margraviate of Meissen (German: Markgrafschaft Meißen) was a medieval principality in the area of the modern German state of Saxony. It originally was a frontier march of the Holy Roman Empire, created out of the vast Marca Geronis (Saxon Eastern March) in 965. Under the rule of the Wettin dynasty, the margravate finally merged with the former Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg into the Saxon Electorate by 1423.
The March or Margraviate of Lusatia (German: Markgrafschaft Lausitz) was an eastern border march of the Holy Roman Empire in the lands settled by Polabian Slavs. It arose in 965 in the course of the partition of the vast Marca Geronis. Ruled by several Saxon margravial dynasties, among them the House of Wettin, the lordship was contested by the Polish kings as well as by the Ascanian margraves of Brandenburg. The remaining territory was finally incorporated into the Lands of the Bohemian Crown in 1367.