The
Visigothic Kingdom or
Kingdom of the Visigoths (; ) was a kingdom that occupied what is now southwestern
France and the
Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th centuries. One of the
Germanic successor states to the
Western Roman Empire, it was originally created by the settlement of the
Visigoths under King
Wallia in the province of
Aquitaine in southwest France by the Roman government and then extended by conquest over all of the Iberian Peninsula. The Kingdom maintained independence from the Eastern Roman or
Byzantine Empire, the attempts of which to re-establish Roman authority in Iberia were only partially successful and short-lived.