Aukstaitian

The Aukštaitians, or Highland Lithuanians, take their name from Aukštaitija, upland country of the upper Nemunas basin in north-eastern Lithuania and adjoining Belarus.

Until the thirteenth century their territory matched the early Duchy of Lithuania, probably centred on Kernavė, and the Teutonic Chronicon terrae Prussiae of about 1326 calls it Austechia; German documents styled Grand Duke Gediminas King of the Aukštaitians. From the late thirteenth century these lands formed the Duchies of Vilnius and Trakai, core of the Grand Duchy later called Lithuania proper.

With the Samogitians they were one of two main branches forming the Lithuanian nation, and their Aukštaitian dialect became the basis of standard Lithuanian. They remained pagan until the Christianization of Lithuania in 1387; their nobles later shared the Grand Duchy's fate in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until the late eighteenth-century partitions.