the middle Dnieper valley region. According to the prevalent theory, the name Rus&apos;, like the Proto-Finnic name for Sweden (*rootsi), is derived from an Old Norse term for 'men who row' (rods-) because rowing was the main method of navigating the rivers of Eastern Europe, and could be linked to the Swedish coastal area of Roslagen (Rus-law) or Roden, as it was known in earlier times. The name Rus&apos; would then have the same origin as the Finnish and Estonian names for Sweden: Ruotsi and Rootsi. When the Varangian princes arrived, the name Rus' was associated with them, and the territories they controlled were called Rus' land (): initially the cities of Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Pereiaslav and their surroundings. From the late tenth century, Vladimir the Great and Yaroslav the Wise tried to associate the name with all of the extended princely domains, but in the specific sense it continued to refer to this triangular territory east of the middle Dnieper until after the disintegration of Kievan Rus'. The term Kievan Rus&apos; () was coined in the 19th century in Russian historiography to refer to the period when the centre was in Kiev. In the 19th century it also appeared in . In English, the term was introduced in the early 20th century, when it was found in the 1913 English translation of Vasily Klyuchevsky's A History of Russia, to distinguish the early polity from successor states, which were also named Rus&apos;. The variant Kyivan Rus&apos; appeared in English-language scholarship by the 1950s. Later, the Russian term was rendered into or and . The historically accurate but rare spelling Kyevan Rus&apos;, based on Old East Slavic () 'Kyiv', is also occasionally seen. The Varangian Rus' from Scandinavia used the Old Norse name , "land of cities", because fortified settlements were so numerous in Kievan Rus'. History Origin Prior to the emergence of Kievan Rus' in the 9th century, most of the area north of the Black Sea, which roughly overlaps with modern-day Ukraine and Belarus, was primarily populated by eastern Slavic tribes. In the northern region around Novgorod were the Ilmen Slavs and neighboring Krivichi, who occupied territories surrounding the headwaters of the West Dvina, Dnieper and Volga rivers. To their north, in the Ladoga and Karelia regions, were the Finnic Chud tribe. In the south, in the area around Kiev, were the Poliane, a group of Slavicized tribes with