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The presence of German-speaking populations in Central and Eastern Europe is rooted in centuries of history, with the settling in northeastern Europe of Germanic peoples predating even the founding of the Roman Empire. The presence of independent German states in the region (particularly Prussia), and later the German Empire as well as other multi-ethnic countries with German-speaking minorities, such as Hungary, Poland, Imperial Russia, etc., demonstrates the extent and duration of German-speaking settlements.
The number of ethnic Germans in Central and Eastern Europe dropped dramatically as the result of the post-1944 German flight and expulsion from Central and Eastern Europe. There are still substantial numbers of ethnic Germans in the countries that are now Germany and Austria's neighbors to the east—Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary. Finland, the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the Balkans (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey) and the former Soviet Union (Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan) also have smaller but still significant numbers of citizens of German descent.