"Old Saxony" is the original homeland of the Saxons. It corresponds roughly to the modern German states of Lower Saxony, eastern part of modern North Rhine-Westphalia state (Westphalia), Nordalbingia (Holstein, southern part of Schleswig-Holstein) and western Saxony-Anhalt (Eastphalia), which all lie in northwestern Germany. It had four provinces: Nordalbingia, Eastphalia, Westphalia and Angria or Angaria, these provinces, in turn, were divided into smaller territories, the gaue, which are equivalent to modern Districts of Germany (Kreise), and were equivalent to the English shires (modern counties). It should not be confused with the modern German state of Saxony, which is in eastern Germany, adjoining the northwest border of the Czech Republic. Origin and history Tacitus in his 1st century work De Origine et situ Germanorum ascribes several tribes of Germanic peoples inhabiting the northern seaboard and interior lands later called Old Saxony, viz; <blockquote>(English translation) "There follow in order the Reudignians, and Aviones, and Angles, and Varinians, and Eudoses, and Suardones and Nuithones; all defended by rivers or forests. Nor in one of these nations does aught remarkable occur, only that they universally join in the worship of Herthum (Nerthus); that is to say, the Mother Earth." —Tacitus, Germania, 40, translated 1877 by Church and Brodribb.</blockquote> Tacitus believed that these tribal precursors of the Saxons were the original and ancient inhabitants of this land. Modern linguistic and archaeological evidence tends to support this. Ptolemy's Geographia, written in the 2nd century, is sometimes considered to contain the first mentioning of the Saxons. Some copies of this text mention a tribe called Saxones in the area to the north of the lower River Elbe, thought to derive from the word Sax or stone knife. However, other copies call the same tribe Axones, and it is considered likely that it is a misspelling of the tribe that Tacitus in his Germania called Aviones. These earliest known tribal Saxons inhabited "Northern Albingia", a region bordering the northern bank of the mouth of River Elbe in what is now Western Holstein. As land became scarce, the Saxon population began to expand southward where it absorbed indigenous populations such as Cherusci, Chamavi and Chatti, and remaining portions of the Langobardi (Lombards) and Suebi. This broader domain is called "Old Saxony". The Chauci, according to Tacitus, also lived in the general area later known as Old Saxony and were highly respected among Germanic tribes. He describes them as peaceful,