The French are a Romance-speaking people who originate from what is now France. The French people are descended from the Gauls, a Celtic people who inhabited Gaul (present-day France and parts of Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany) in ancient times. The Gauls were conquered by the Romans in the 1st century BC and subsequently assimilated into Roman culture and society. The Roman Empire eventually collapsed in the 5th century AD, and Gaul was divided into several kingdoms, including the Kingdom of the Franks. The Franks were a Germanic people who had settled in Gaul during the 5th and 6th centuries AD. The Kingdom of the Franks eventually became the Kingdom of France, and the French people emerged as a distinct ethnic group.