etimologie

Etymology[edit]
"The name Germany, on the other hand, they say, is modern and newly introduced, from the fact that the tribes which first crossed the Rhine and drove out the Gauls, and are now called Tungrians, were then called
Germans. Thus what was the name of a tribe, and not of a race, gradually prevailed, till all called themselves by this self-invented name of Germans, which the conquerors had first employed to inspire terror."[1][2]
— Tacitus
15th century map of Germania as described by Ptolemy in Geography (Ptolemy) (150 AD)
In Latin, the name Germania means "lands where people called Germani live".[3] Modern scholars do not agree on the etymology of the name Germani. Celtic, Germanic, Illyrian and Latin etymologies have been suggested.[4]
The main source on the origin of the names Germania and Germani is the book Germania (98 AD) by Tacitus.[2] Tacitus writes that the name Germania was "modern and newly introduced". According to Tacitus, the
name Germani had once been applied only to the Tungri, west of the Rhine, but became an "artificial name" (invento nomine) for supposedly related peoples east of the Rhine.[1][2] Many modern scholars consider Tacitus'
story plausible, although it is doubted whether the name was commonly used by Germani to refer to themselves.[5][2]
Geography[edit]
The boundaries of Germania are not clearly defined, particularly at its northern and eastern fringes.[6] Magna Germania stretched approximately from the Rhine in the west to beyond the Vistula river in the east, and from
the Danube in the south and northwards along the North and Baltic seas, including Scandinavia.[7][8][9][10] Germania Superior encompassed parts of modern-day Switzerland, southwest Germany and eastern France, while 
Germania Inferior encompassed much of modern-day Belgium and Netherlands.[6]
In his Geography (150 AD), the Roman geographer Ptolemy provides descriptions of the geography of Germania.[11] Modern scholars have been able to localize many of the place names mentioned by Ptolemy, and associated
them with place names of the present day.[12]
Germania was inhabited by a large number of peoples, and there was not much unity among them.[13] It appears that Germania was not entirely inhabited by Germanic peoples. Hydronymy provides evidence for the
presence of another Indo-European group, which probably lived under Germanic domination.[14]