The Drevani were a tribe of Polabian Slavs

Polabian Slavs

Polabian Slavs - is a collective term applied to a number of Lechites tribes who lived along the Elbe river, between the Baltic Sea to the north, the Saale and the Limes Saxoniae to the west, the Ore Mountains and the Western Sudetes to the south, and Poland to the east. They have also been known...

 settling on the Elbe river in the area of the present-day Lüchow-Dannenberg

Lüchow-Dannenberg

Lüchow-Dannenberg is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany which is usually referred to as Hannoversches Wendland or Wendland. It is bounded by the districts of Uelzen and Lüneburg and the states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt Lüchow-Dannenberg is a district in...

 district of Lower Saxony

Lower Saxony

Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

.

They were a constituent tribe of the Obodrite confederacy. In the course of the 9th century their territory was conquered by the Carolingian Empire

Carolingian Empire

Carolingian Empire is a historiographical term which has been used to refer to the realm of the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty in the Early Middle Ages. This dynasty is seen as the founders of France and Germany, and its beginning date is based on the crowning of Charlemagne, or Charles the...

 and incorporated into the Duchy of Saxony

Duchy of Saxony

The medieval Duchy of Saxony was a late Early Middle Ages "Carolingian stem duchy" covering the greater part of Northern Germany. It covered the area of the modern German states of Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Saxony-Anhalt and most of Schleswig-Holstein...

. According to the Royal Frankish Annals

Royal Frankish Annals

The Royal Frankish Annals or Annals of the Kingdom of the Franks ,are annals covering the history of early Carolingian monarchs from 741 to 829. Their composition seems to have soon been taken up at court, providing them with markedly official character...

 Emperor Charlemagne

Charlemagne

Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

 had a fortress built at Höhbeck

Höhbeck

Höhbeck is a municipality in the district Lüchow-Dannenberg, in Lower Saxony, Germany....

.

The lands where the Drevani lived is today also known as the Wendland, named after the Wends

Wends

Wends is a historic name for West Slavs living near Germanic settlement areas. It does not refer to a homogeneous people, but to various peoples, tribes or groups depending on where and when it is used...

. The Slavic language died out in the 19th century. The name of Drevani means "people of woods/trees" in Polabian

Polabian language

The Polabian language is an extinct West Slavic language that was spoken by the Polabian Slavs in present-day North-Eastern Germany around the Elbe river, from which derives its name...

 (from drevo "tree"). It survived in the name of Drawehn

Drawehn

The Drawehn is a partly wooded and partly agricultural region of hills in the northeastern part of the German state of Lower Saxony, lying between the districts of Lüneburg and Uelzen in the west and Lüchow-Dannenberg in the east.- Definition :...

hills.