1.
Presbyterianism
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Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism which traces its origins to the British Isles, particularly Scotland. Presbyterian churches derive their name from the form of church government. Presbyterian theology typically emphasizes the sovereignty of God, the authority of the Scriptures, Presbyterian church government was ensured in Scotland by the Acts of Union in 1707 which created the Kingdom of Great Britain. In fact, most Presbyterians found in England can trace a Scottish connection, the Presbyterian denominations in Scotland hold to the theology of John Calvin and his immediate successors, although there are a range of theological views within contemporary Presbyterianism. The roots of Presbyterianism lie in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, most Reformed churches which trace their history back to Scotland are either presbyterian or congregationalist in government. In the twentieth century, some Presbyterians played an important role in the ecumenical movement, many Presbyterian denominations have found ways of working together with other Reformed denominations and Christians of other traditions, especially in the World Communion of Reformed Churches. Some Presbyterian churches have entered into unions with other churches, such as Congregationalists, Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterian history is part of the history of Christianity, but the beginning of Presbyterianism as a distinct movement occurred during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. As the Catholic Church resisted the reformers, several different theological movements splintered from the Church, the Presbyterian church traces its ancestry back primarily to England and Scotland. In August 1560 the Parliament of Scotland adopted the Scots Confession as the creed of the Scottish Kingdom, Presbyterians distinguish themselves from other denominations by doctrine, institutional organization and worship, often using a Book of Order to regulate common practice and order. The origins of the Presbyterian churches are in Calvinism, many branches of Presbyterianism are remnants of previous splits from larger groups. Presbyterians place great importance upon education and lifelong learning, Presbyterian government is by councils of elders. Teaching and ruling elders are ordained and convene in the lowest council known as a session or consistory responsible for the discipline, nurture, teaching elders have responsibility for teaching, worship, and performing sacraments. Pastors are called by individual congregations, a congregation issues a call for the pastors service, but this call must be ratified by the local presbytery. Ruling elders are usually laymen who are elected by the congregation and ordained to serve with the elders, assuming responsibility for nurture. Often, especially in larger congregations, the elders delegate the practicalities of buildings, finance and this group may variously be known as a Deacon Board, Board of Deacons Diaconate, or Deacons Court. These are sometimes known as presbyters to the full congregation, above the sessions exist presbyteries, which have area responsibilities. These are composed of teaching elders and ruling elders from each of the constituent congregations, the presbytery sends representatives to a broader regional or national assembly, generally known as the General Assembly, although an intermediate level of a synod sometimes exists. The Church of Scotland abolished the Synod in 1993, Presbyterian governance is practised by Presbyterian denominations and also by many other Reformed churches
2.
New Zealand
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New Zealand /njuːˈziːlənd/ is an island nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses—the North Island, or Te Ika-a-Māui, and the South Island, or Te Waipounamu—and around 600 smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 1,500 kilometres east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia, Fiji, because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. During its long period of isolation, New Zealand developed a distinct biodiversity of animal, fungal, the countrys varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks, such as the Southern Alps, owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions. New Zealands capital city is Wellington, while its most populous city is Auckland, sometime between 1250 and 1300 CE, Polynesians settled in the islands that later were named New Zealand and developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight New Zealand, in 1840, representatives of Britain and Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which declared British sovereignty over the islands. In 1841, New Zealand became a colony within the British Empire, today, the majority of New Zealands population of 4.7 million is of European descent, the indigenous Māori are the largest minority, followed by Asians and Pacific Islanders. Reflecting this, New Zealands culture is derived from Māori and early British settlers. The official languages are English, Māori and New Zealand Sign Language, New Zealand is a developed country and ranks highly in international comparisons of national performance, such as health, education, economic freedom and quality of life. Since the 1980s, New Zealand has transformed from an agrarian, Queen Elizabeth II is the countrys head of state and is represented by a governor-general. In addition, New Zealand is organised into 11 regional councils and 67 territorial authorities for local government purposes, the Realm of New Zealand also includes Tokelau, the Cook Islands and Niue, and the Ross Dependency, which is New Zealands territorial claim in Antarctica. New Zealand is a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Pacific Islands Forum, and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sighted New Zealand in 1642 and called it Staten Landt, in 1645, Dutch cartographers renamed the land Nova Zeelandia after the Dutch province of Zeeland. British explorer James Cook subsequently anglicised the name to New Zealand, Aotearoa is the current Māori name for New Zealand. It is unknown whether Māori had a name for the country before the arrival of Europeans. Māori had several names for the two main islands, including Te Ika-a-Māui for the North Island and Te Waipounamu or Te Waka o Aoraki for the South Island. Early European maps labelled the islands North, Middle and South, in 1830, maps began to use North and South to distinguish the two largest islands and by 1907, this was the accepted norm. The New Zealand Geographic Board discovered in 2009 that the names of the North Island and South Island had never been formalised and this set the names as North Island or Te Ika-a-Māui, and South Island or Te Waipounamu
3.
Auckland
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Auckland is a city in the North Island of New Zealand. It is the most populous area in the country. Auckland has a population of 1,495,000, which constitutes 32 percent of New Zealands population, a diverse and multicultural city, Auckland is home to the largest Polynesian population in the world. It has also been called Ākarana, the Māori pronunciation of Auckland, the Auckland urban area ranges to Waiwera in the north, Kumeu in the northwest, and Runciman in the south. It is not contiguous, the section from Waiwera to Whangaparāoa Peninsula is separate from its nearest neighbouring suburb of Long Bay, the surrounding hills are covered in rainforest and the landscape is dotted with dozens of dormant volcanic cones. The central part of the area occupies a narrow isthmus between the Manukau Harbour on the Tasman Sea and the Waitemata Harbour on the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the few cities in the world to have harbours on two major bodies of water. The isthmus on which Auckland resides was first settled around 1350 and was valued for its rich, Māori population in the area is estimated to have peaked at 20,000 before the arrival of Europeans. After a British colony was established in 1840, the new Governor of New Zealand, William Hobson and he named the area Auckland for George Eden, Earl of Auckland, British First Lord of the Admiralty. It was replaced as the capital in 1865, but immigration to the new city stayed strong, today, Aucklands Central Business District is the major financial centre of New Zealand. Auckland is classified as a Beta World City because of its importance in finance, commerce, media, entertainment, arts, education and tourism. Aucklands landmarks such as the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, the Harbour Bridge, the Sky Tower, the isthmus was settled by Māori around 1350, and was valued for its rich and fertile land. Many pā were created, mainly on the volcanic peaks, Māori population in the area is estimated to have been about 20,000 people before the arrival of Europeans. As a result, the region had relatively low numbers of Māori when European settlement of New Zealand began, there is, however, nothing to suggest that this was the result of a deliberate European policy. Auckland was officially declared New Zealands capital in 1841 and the transfer of the administration from Russell in the Bay of Islands was completed in 1842. However, even in 1840 Port Nicholson was seen as a choice for an administrative capital because of its proximity to the South Island. After losing its status as capital, Auckland remained the city of the Auckland Province until the provincial system was abolished in 1876. Each of the four settlements had about 800 settlers, the men being fully armed in case of emergency but spent nearly all their time breaking in the land and establishing roads
4.
Scotland
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Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a border with England to the south, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles, the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles, titles, the legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. Glasgow, Scotlands largest city, was one of the worlds leading industrial cities. Other major urban areas are Aberdeen and Dundee, Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third-largest city in Scotland, the title of Europes oil capital, following a referendum in 1997, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy. Scotland is represented in the UK Parliament by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs, Scotland is also a member nation of the British–Irish Council, and the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland comes from Scoti, the Latin name for the Gaels, the Late Latin word Scotia was initially used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to Scotland north of the River Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages. Repeated glaciations, which covered the land mass of modern Scotland. It is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, the groups of settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, and the first villages around 6,000 years ago. The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period and it contains the remains of an early Bronze Age ruler laid out on white quartz pebbles and birch bark. It was also discovered for the first time that early Bronze Age people placed flowers in their graves, in the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland, causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll, when the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village, consisting of a number of small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, the laird, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after uncovering four houses
5.
Ireland
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Ireland is an island in the North Atlantic. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth. Politically, Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland, which covers five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, in 2011, the population of Ireland was about 6.4 million, ranking it the second-most populous island in Europe after Great Britain. Just under 4.6 million live in the Republic of Ireland, the islands geography comprises relatively low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain, with several navigable rivers extending inland. The island has lush vegetation, a product of its mild, thick woodlands covered the island until the Middle Ages. As of 2013, the amount of land that is wooded in Ireland is about 11% of the total, there are twenty-six extant mammal species native to Ireland. The Irish climate is moderate and classified as oceanic. As a result, winters are milder than expected for such a northerly area, however, summers are cooler than those in Continental Europe. Rainfall and cloud cover are abundant, the earliest evidence of human presence in Ireland is dated at 10,500 BC. Gaelic Ireland had emerged by the 1st century CE, the island was Christianised from the 5th century onward. Following the Norman invasion in the 12th century, England claimed sovereignty over Ireland, however, English rule did not extend over the whole island until the 16th–17th century Tudor conquest, which led to colonisation by settlers from Britain. In the 1690s, a system of Protestant English rule was designed to materially disadvantage the Catholic majority and Protestant dissenters, with the Acts of Union in 1801, Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland saw much civil unrest from the late 1960s until the 1990s and this subsided following a political agreement in 1998. In 1973 the Republic of Ireland joined the European Economic Community while the United Kingdom, Irish culture has had a significant influence on other cultures, especially in the fields of literature. Alongside mainstream Western culture, an indigenous culture exists, as expressed through Gaelic games, Irish music. The culture of the island shares many features with that of Great Britain, including the English language, and sports such as association football, rugby, horse racing. The name Ireland derives from Old Irish Eriu and this in turn derives from Proto-Celtic *Iveriu, which is also the source of Latin Hibernia. Iveriu derives from a root meaning fat, prosperous, during the last glacial period, and up until about 9000 years ago, most of Ireland was covered with ice, most of the time
6.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
7.
Dunedin
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Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago region. It is named for the capital of Scotland, generally Anglicised as Edinburgh, Dunedin was the largest New Zealand city by territorial land area until superseded by Auckland on the creation of the Auckland Council in November 2010. Dunedin was the largest city in New Zealand by population from the 1860s until about 1900, the city population at 5 March 2013 was 120,246. The Dunedin urban area lies on the central-eastern coast of Otago, the harbour and hills around Dunedin represent the remnants of an extinct volcano. The city suburbs extend out into the valleys and hills, onto the isthmus of the Otago Peninsula, and along the shores of the Otago Harbour. The citys most important activity in economic terms centres around tertiary education – Dunedin is home to the University of Otago, New Zealands first university, and the Otago Polytechnic. Students account for a proportion of the population,21.6 percent of the citys population was aged between 15 and 24 at the 2006 census, compared to the New Zealand average of 14.2 percent. In 2014 Dunedin was designated as a UNESCO Creative City of Literature, archaeological evidence shows the first human occupation of New Zealand occurred between AD 1250–1300, with population concentrated along the southeast coast. A camp site at Kaikai Beach, near Long Beach, has dated from about that time. There are numerous sites in what is now Dunedin, several of them large and permanently occupied. The population contracted but expanded again with the evolution of the Classic culture which saw the building of several pā, fortified settlements, notably Pukekura at, there was a settlement in what is now central Dunedin occupied as late as about 1785 but abandoned by 1826. Maori tradition tells first of a people called Kahui Tipua living in the area, then Te Rapuwai, semi-legendary, the next arrivals were Waitaha followed by Kāti Mamoe late in the 16th century and then Kai Tahu who arrived in the mid 17th century. These migration waves have often represented as invasions in European accounts. They were probably migrations like those of the European which incidentally resulted in bloodshed, the sealer John Boultbee recorded in the 1820s that the Kaika Otargo were the oldest and largest in the south. Lieutenant James Cook stood off what is now the coast of Dunedin between 25 February 1770 and 5 March 1770, naming Cape Saunders and Saddle Hill and he reported penguins and seals in the vicinity, which led sealers to visit from the beginning of the 19th century. Permanent European occupation dates from 1831, when the Weller brothers founded their whaling station at Otago, modern Otakou, epidemics badly reduced the Maori population. By the late 1830s the Harbour had become an international whaling port, johnny Jones established a farming settlement and a mission station, the South Islands first, at Waikouaiti in 1840. After inspecting several areas around the eastern coast of the south island, the name comes from Dùn Èideann, the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland
8.
Christchurch
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Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. The Christchurch urban area lies on the South Islands east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula and it is home to 389,700 residents, making it New Zealands third most-populous urban area behind Auckland and Wellington. The city was named by the Canterbury Association, which settled the province of Canterbury. The name of Christchurch was agreed on at the first meeting of the association on 27 March 1848 and it was suggested by John Robert Godley, who had attended Christ Church, Oxford. Some early writers called the town Christ Church, but it was recorded as Christchurch in the minutes of the management committee of the association, Christchurch became a city by Royal Charter on 31 July 1856, making it officially the oldest established city in New Zealand. The Avon River flows through the centre of the city, with a park located along its banks. At the request of the Deans brothers, the river was named after the River Avon in Scotland, the usual Māori name for Christchurch is Ōtautahi. This was originally the name of a site by the Avon River near present-day Kilmore Street. The site was a dwelling of Ngāi Tahu chief Te Potiki Tautahi. The Ōtautahi name was adopted in the 1930s, prior to that the Ngāi Tahu generally referred to the Christchurch area as Karaitiana, a transliteration of the English word Christian. The citys name is abbreviated by New Zealanders to Chch. In New Zealand Sign Language, the name is the fingerspelled letter C signed twice, with the second to the right of the first. Archaeological evidence found in a cave at Redcliffs in 1876 has indicated that the Christchurch area was first settled by moa-hunting tribes about 1250 CE. These first inhabitants were thought to have followed by the Waitaha tribe. Following tribal warfare, the Waitaha were dispossessed by the Ngati Mamoe tribe and they were in turn subjugated by the Ngāi Tahu tribe, who remained in control until the arrival of European settlers. Their abandoned holdings were taken over by the Deans brothers in 1843 who stayed, the First Four Ships were chartered by the Canterbury Association and brought the first 792 of the Canterbury Pilgrims to Lyttelton Harbour. These sailing vessels were the Randolph, Charlotte Jane, Sir George Seymour, the Charlotte Jane was the first to arrive on 16 December 1850. The Canterbury Pilgrims had aspirations of building a city around a cathedral and college, the name Christ Church was decided prior to the ships arrival, at the Associations first meeting, on 27 March 1848
9.
Wellington Harbour
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Wellington Harbour is the large natural harbour on the southern tip of New Zealands North Island. New Zealands capital city, Wellington, is located on its western side, the harbour, the sea area bounded by a line between Pencarrow and Palmer Heads to Petone foreshore, was Port Nicholson until 1984. In the Māori language the harbour is known as Te Whanganui-a-Tara the great harbour of Tara, another Māori name for Wellington, Pōneke, is said to be a rendition of Port Nick though a 2005 dictionary has said it was a transliteration of Port Nicholson. Wellington Harbour is an arm of Cook Strait, covering some 76 km² and it has a maximum length of over 11 kilometres and a width of 9.25 kilometres. The depth of water over the bulk of the harbour exceeds 20 metres or 10 fathoms. The harbour is of seismic origin, and an earthquake fault lies along its western shore. At the northern end of the lies the narrow triangular plain of the Hutt River. The city of Lower Hutt is located on this plain, the central city suburbs spread around the hills overlooking the west and south-west of Wellington Harbour and its two large bays, Lambton Harbour and Evans Bay. Lambton Harbour is surrounded by the land of Wellingtons central business district. Evans Bay is an inlet between Mt Victoria and the Miramar Peninsula that serves as a path to low-lying Wellington Airport. Another smaller but popular bay, for its beaches and Cafes is Oriental Bay, to the east of the harbour lie several small bays, most of which are populated by small coastal communities. The largest of these settlements is Eastbourne, directly to the east of the northern tip of the Miramar Peninsula. Three small islands are located in the harbour, close to the harbours entrance lies Barrett Reef, its rocks breaking the waters surface at low tide. It was here in 1968 that the passenger ferry Wahine grounded during a storm. Wellington Harbour and its waterfront have gone by many names, the earliest known name for Wellington city, derived from Maori legend, is Te Upoko o te Ika a Maui or the head of Mauis fish. It literally means the harbour of Tara. Colonel William Wakefield allegedly named Lambton Harbour in 1839 in honour of the Earl of Durham, to increase the amount of usable flat land for Wellington city, the reclamation of Wellington Harbour started in the 1850s. Wellington Harbour is a significant port serving the lower North Island, the regions third largest container port is located in Wellington City proper and there is a tanker terminal at Seaview, in Lower Hutt
10.
Dutch people
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The Dutch, occasionally referred to as Netherlanders—a term that is cognate to the Dutch word for Dutch people, Nederlanders—are a Germanic ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a culture and speak the Dutch language. The high degree of urbanization characteristic of Dutch society was attained at an early date. During the Republic the first series of large scale Dutch migrations outside of Europe took place, despite the small size of the Netherlands, the Dutch left behind a legacy in excess of their mere numbers. The traditional art and culture of the Dutch encompasses various forms of music, dances, architectural styles and clothing. Internationally, Dutch painters such as Rembrandt, Vermeer and Van Gogh are held in high regard, the dominant religion of the Dutch is Christianity, although in modern times the majority is no longer religious. Significant percentages of the Dutch are adherents of humanism, agnosticism, atheism or individual spirituality, as with all ethnic groups the ethnogenesis of the Dutch has been a lengthy and complex process. The text below hence focuses on the history of the Dutch ethnic group, for Dutch national history, for Dutch colonial history, see the article on the Dutch Empire. Following the end of the period in the West around 500, with large federations settling the decaying Roman Empire. In the Low Countries, this began when the Franks, themselves a union of multiple smaller tribes. Eventually, in 358, the Salian Franks, one of the three main subdivisions among the Frankish alliance settled the areas Southern lands as foederati, Roman allies in charge of border defense. On a political level, the Frankish warlords abandoned tribalism and founded a number of kingdoms, however, the population make-up of the Frankish Empire, or even early Frankish kingdoms such as Neustria and Austrasia, was not dominated by Franks. Though the Frankish leaders controlled most of Western Europe, the Franks themselves were confined to the Northwestern part of the Empire, the current Dutch-French language border has remained virtually identical ever since, and could be seen as marking the furthest pale of gallicization among the Franks. The medieval cities of the Low Countries, which experienced major growth during the 11th and 12th century, were instrumental in breaking down the already relatively loose local form of feudalism, as they became increasingly powerful, they used their economical strength to influence the politics of their nobility. While the cities were of political importance, they also formed catalysts for medieval Dutch culture. The various city guilds as well as the necessity of water boards in the Dutch delta and it is also around this time, that ethnonyms such as Diets and Nederlands emerge. This process marked a new episode in the development of the Dutch ethnic group, as now political unity started to emerge, consolidating the strengthened cultural, despite their linguistic and cultural unity, and economic similarities, there was still little sense of political unity among the Dutch people. However, the centralist policies of Burgundy in the 14th and 15th centuries, at first violently opposed by the cities of the Low Countries, had a profound impact and changed this
