The Salian Franks, also called the Salians, were a northwestern subgroup of the early Franks who appear in the historical record in the fourth and fifth centuries. They lived west of the Lower Rhine in what was then the Roman Empire and today the Netherlands and Belgium.

The Franks were a western European people during the Roman Empire and Early Middle Ages. They began as a Germanic people who lived near the Lower Rhine, on the northern continental frontier of the empire. They subsequently expanded their power and influence during the Middle Ages, until much of the population of western Europe, particularly in and near France, were commonly described as Franks, for example in the context of their joint efforts during the Crusades starting in the 11th century. This expansion came about because the romanized Frankish dynasties based within the collapsing Western Roman Empire first became the rulers of the whole region between the rivers Loire and Rhine, and then subsequently imposed power over many other post-Roman kingdoms both inside and outside the old empire.