Polabian Slavs, also known as Elbe Slavsand more broadly as Wends, is a collective term applied to a number of Lechitic (West Slavic) tribes who lived scattered along the Elbe river in what is today eastern Germany. The approximate territory stretched from the Baltic Sea in the north, the Saale and the Limes Saxoniae in the west, the Ore Mountains and the Western Sudetes in the south, and medieval Poland in the east.
The Polabian Slavs, largely conquered by Saxons and Danes from the 9th century onwards, were included and gradually assimilated within the Holy Roman Empire. The tribes became gradually Germanized and assimilated in the following centuries; the Sorbs are the only descendants of the Polabian Slavs to have retained their identity and culture.
