​The presence of the Romans in Belgium started around 50 BC. and spanned a period of nearly 5 centuries. The Romans had formed a world empire in that period, stretching from the Rhine and Danube in the north, Britain in the west, the Sahara in the south and the region of the Euphrates and Tigris in the east. Within this Roman Empire was the Provincia Gallia Belgica, which included an area in the Netherlands south of the Rhine, almost all of present-day Belgium, parts of Germany west of the Rhine and present-day northern France above the Seine. Roman Belgica covered a much larger territory than the modern Kingdom of Belgium, and the most important places in Roman Belgica were in France and Germany. The collective name for the tribes in Gallia Belgica became Belgae.