Vistula in the context of "Baltic tribes"

The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe during Classical antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era Germani who lived in both Germania and parts of the Roman Empire, but also all Germanic speaking peoples from this era, irrespective of where they lived, most notably the Goths. Another term, ancient Germans, is considered problematic by many scholars because it suggests identity with present-day Germans. Although the first Roman descriptions of Germani involved tribes west of the Rhine, their homeland of Germania was portrayed as stretching east of the Rhine, to southern Scandinavia and the Vistula in the east, and to the upper Danube in the south. Other Germanic speakers, such as the Bastarnae and Goths, lived further east in what is now Moldova and Ukraine. The term Germani is generally only used to refer to historical peoples from the 1st to 4th centuries CE.

Different academic disciplines have their own definitions of what makes someone or something "Germanic". Some scholars call for the term's total abandonment as a modern construct, since lumping "Germanic peoples" together implies a common group identity for which there is little evidence. Other scholars have defended the term's continued use and argue that a common Germanic language allows one to speak of "Germanic peoples", regardless of whether these ancient and medieval peoples saw themselves as having a common identity. Scholars generally agree that it is possible to refer to Germanic languages from about 500 BCE. Archaeologists usually associate the earliest clearly identifiable Germanic speaking peoples with the Jastorf culture of the Pre-Roman Iron Age in central and northern Germany and southern Denmark from the 6th to 1st centuries BCE. This culture existed around the same time that the First Germanic Consonant Shift is theorized to have occurred, leading to recognizably Germanic languages. Germanic languages expanded south, east, and west, coming into contact with Celtic, Iranic, Baltic, and Slavic peoples before they were noted by the Romans.

Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at 1.86 million residents within a greater metropolitan area of 3.27 million residents, which makes Warsaw the 6th most-populous city in the European Union. The city area measures 517 km (200 sq mi) and comprises 18 districts, while the metropolitan area covers 6,100 km (2,355 sq mi). Warsaw is classified as an alpha global city, a major political, economic and cultural hub, and the country's seat of government. It is also the capital of the Masovian Voivodeship.

Warsaw traces its origins to a small fishing town in Masovia. The city rose to prominence in the late 16th century, when Sigismund III decided to move the Polish capital and his royal court from Kraków. Warsaw surpassed Gdańsk as Poland's most populous city by the 18th century. It served as the capital of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1795, and subsequently as the seat of Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. The 19th century and its Industrial Revolution brought a demographic boom, which made it one of the largest and most densely populated cities in Europe. Known then for its elegant architecture and boulevards, Warsaw was bombed and besieged at the start of World War II in 1939. Much of the historic city was destroyed and its diverse population decimated by the Ghetto Uprising in 1943, the general Warsaw Uprising in 1944, and systematic razing.

Otwock ([ˈɔtfɔt͡sk] ; Yiddish: אָטוואָצק) is a city in the Masovian Voivodeship in east-central Poland, some 23 kilometres (14 mi) south-east of Warsaw, with 43,895 inhabitants (2024). Otwock is part of the Warsaw metropolitan area. It is situated on the right bank of the Vistula River, below the mouth of the Świder River. Otwock is home to a unique architectural style called Świdermajer.

It is the capital of Otwock County. The town covers an area of 47 square kilometres (18 sq mi). Forested areas make up 23% of the territory, and there are several nature reserves.

The Vistula Veneti, also called Baltic Veneti, Venedi or Venethi, were an Indo-European people that inhabited the lands of central Europe east of the Vistula River and the Bay of Gdańsk. Ancient Roman geographers first mentioned Venedi in the 1st century AD, differentiating a group of peoples whose manner and language differed from those of the neighbouring Germanic and Sarmatian tribes. In the 6th century AD, Byzantine historians described the Veneti as the ancestors of the Slavs who, during the second phase of the Migration Period, crossed the northern frontiers of the Byzantine Empire.

Kievan Rus', also known as Kyivan Rus', was the first East Slavic state and later an amalgam of principalities in Eastern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century. Encompassing a variety of polities and peoples, including East Slavic, Norse, and Finnic, it was ruled by the Rurik dynasty, founded by the Varangian prince Rurik. The name was coined by Russian historians in the 19th century to describe the period when Kiev was preeminent. At its greatest extent in the mid-11th century, Kievan Rus' stretched from the White Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south and from the headwaters of the Vistula in the west to the Taman Peninsula in the east, uniting the East Slavic tribes.

According to the Primary Chronicle, the first ruler to unite East Slavic lands into what would become Kievan Rus' was Varangian prince Oleg the Wise (r. 879–912). He extended his control from Novgorod south along the Dnieper river valley to protect trade from Khazar incursions from the east, and took control of the city of Kiev, laying the foundation of the state and becoming prince of Kiev. Sviatoslav I (r. 943–972) achieved the first major territorial expansion of the state, fighting a war of conquest against the Khazars. Vladimir the Great (r. 980–1015) spread Christianity with his own baptism and, by decree, extended it to all inhabitants of Kiev and beyond. Kievan Rus' reached its greatest extent under Yaroslav the Wise (r. 1019–1054); his sons assembled and issued its first written legal code, the Russkaya Pravda, shortly after his death.

The Amber Road was an ancient trade route for the transfer of amber from coastal areas of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Prehistoric trade routes between Northern and Southern Europe were defined by the amber trade.

As an important commodity, sometimes dubbed "the gold of the north", amber was transported from the North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts overland by way of the Vistula and Dnieper rivers to Italy, Greece, the Black Sea, Syria and Egypt over a period of thousands of years.

Aerial photography (or airborne imagery) is the taking of photographs from an aircraft or other airborne platforms. When taking motion pictures, it is also known as aerial videography.

Platforms for aerial photography include fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or "drones"), balloons, blimps and dirigibles, rockets, pigeons, kites, or using action cameras while skydiving or wingsuiting. Handheld cameras may be manually operated by the photographer, while mounted cameras are usually remotely operated or triggered automatically.

Germania (/dʒərˈmeɪni.ə/ jər-MAY-nee-ə; Latin: [ɡɛrˈmaːni.a]), also more specifically called Magna Germania (English: Greater Germania), Germania Libera (English: Free Germania), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman provinces of Germania Inferior and Germania Superior, was a historical region in north-central Europe during the Roman era, which was associated by Roman authors with the Germanic peoples. According to Roman geographers, this region stretched roughly from the Rhine in the west to the Vistula in the east, and to the Upper Danube in the south, and the known parts of southern Scandinavia in the north. Archaeologically, these people correspond roughly to the Roman Iron Age of those regions.

The Latin name Germania means "land of the Germani", but the etymology of the name Germani itself is uncertain. During the Gallic Wars of the 1st century BC, the Roman general Julius Caesar encountered Germani originating from beyond the Rhine. He referred to their lands beyond the Rhine as "Germania". West of the Rhine, the prosperous Roman provinces of Germania Superior and Germania Inferior, sometimes collectively referred to as "Roman Germania", were established in northeast Roman Gaul, while territories east of the Rhine remained independent of Roman control. The Roman emperors also sought to expand east of the Rhine to the Elbe, but these efforts were hampered by the victory of Arminius at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD.