Frisia () is a cross-border cultural region in Northwestern Europe. Stretching along the Wadden Sea, it encompasses the north of the Netherlands and parts of northwestern Germany. Wider definitions of "Frisia" may include the island of Rem and the other Danish Wadden Sea Islands. The region is traditionally inhabited by the Frisians, a West Germanic ethnic group.
Etymology
The contemporary name for the region stems from Latin , an ethnonym used for a group of ancient tribes in modern-day Northwestern Germany, possibly being a loanword of Proto-Germanic *frisaz, meaning "curly, crisp", presumably referring to the hair of the tribesmen. In some areas, the local translation of "Frisia" is used to refer to another subregion. On the North Frisian islands, for instance, "Frisia" and "Frisians" refer to (the inhabitants of) mainland North Frisia. In Saterland Frisian, the term Fräislound specifically refers to Ostfriesland.
During the French occupation of the Netherlands, the name for the Frisian department was .
Subdivisions
Frisia is commonly divided into three sections:
- West Frisia in the Netherlands roughly corresponds to the province of Friesland (Fryslân). In a broader sense, it also includes West Friesland in northern North Holland and the Ommelanden in the province of Groningen, though the West Frisian language is only spoken in Friesland proper. Dialects with strong West Frisian substrates, including Low German and Low Franconian, are also spoken in West Frisia. In the province of Groningen, people speak Gronings, a Low Saxon dialect with a strong Frisian substrate. Rural Groningen originally belonged to the Frisian lands "east of the Lauwers" and is therefore more closely linked to East Frisia than to the west. In West Friesland, West Frisian Dutch – a Hollandic dialect with strong Frisian influences – is spoken.
- East Frisia in Lower Saxony, Germany roughly corresponds to the historical regions of East Frisia (Aurich, Leer, Wittmund and Emden) and Oldenburger Friesland (Friesland and Wilhelmshaven), and the municipality of Saterland. In a broader sense, it also includes the Butjadingen peninsula (former Rüstringen) and Land Wursten. Usually, only the people from East Frisia proper () refer to themselves as East Frisians. The German name Ostfriesland distinguishes the historical region from Ost-Friesland, which refers to East Frisia as a whole.
- North Frisia in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany roughly corresponds to the district of Nordfriesland and the archipelago of Heligoland. It includes the North Frisian Islands, where varieties of the North Frisian language are spoken. It stretches from the Eider River in the south to the border of Denmark in the north. Until the Second Schleswig War in 1864, the region belonged to the Danish Duchy of Schleswig.
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:center;"
|+ Subdivisions of Frisia
! scope="col" width="100px" | Section
!Country
! scope="col" width="350px" | Subdivision
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Flag
! scope="col" width="150px" | Population (2020)
! scope="col" width="170px" | Area
|-
! scope="row" rowspan="2" | North Frisia
| rowspan="7" |
| style="text-align:left;" | Nordfriesland
| border|55x55px
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|-
| style="text-align:left;" | Heligoland
| border|55x55px
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|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan="5" | East Frisia
| style="text-align:left;" | Ostfriesland (Aurich, Emden, Leer, Wittmund)
| border|55x55px
|
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|-
| style="text-align:left;" | Oldenburger Friesland (Friesland, Wilhelmshaven)
| border|55x55px
|
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|-
| style="text-align:left;" | Saterland
| border|55x55px
|
|
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | Rüstringen (Butjadingen peninsula)
| border|55x55px
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|-
| style="text-align:left;" | Land Wursten
| border|55x55px
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan="3" | West Frisia
| rowspan="3" |
| style="text-align:left;" | Friesland
| border|55x55px
|
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|-
| style="text-align:left;" | West Friesland
| border|55x55px
|
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|-
| style="text-align:left;" | Ommelanden (Groningen)
| border|55x55px
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|}
History
Roman era
The people later to be known as Frisii began settling in Frisia in the 6th century BC. According to Pliny the Elder, in Roman times, the Frisians (or rather their close neighbours, the Chauci) lived on terps, man-made hills. According to other sources, the Frisians lived along a broader expanse of the North Sea (or "Frisian Sea") coast. At this time, Frisia comprised the present-day provinces of Friesland, Groningen, North Holland and parts of South Holland.
Early Middle Ages
thumb|The Frisian Realm during its great expansion
thumb|The Frisian Kingdom, 6th–8th century AD
Frisian presence during the Early Middle Ages has been documented from North-Western Flanders up to the Weser River Estuary. According to archaeological evidence, these Frisians were not the Frisians of Roman times, but the descendants of Anglo-Saxon immigrants from the German Bight, arriving during the Great Migration. By the 8th century, ethnic Frisians also started to colonize the coastal areas North of the Eider River under Danish rule. The nascent Frisian languages were spoken all along the southern North Sea coast. Today, the whole region is sometimes referred to as Greater Frisia ().
Distant authors seem to have made little distinction between Frisians and Saxons. The Byzantine Procopius described three peoples living in Great Britain: Angles, Frisians and Britons, and the Danish author of Knútsdrápa celebrating the 11th-century Canute the Great used "Frisians" as a synonym of "English".