TheMerehani was a Slavic tribe mentioned by theBavarian Geographer. They are often connected to theMoravians (Marhari), although some scholars believe that the tribe was separate.

The 9th-centuryCatalogue of Fortresses and Regions to the North of the Danube – which lists the peoples along the borders ofEast Francia in a north-to-south order – mentions that the Moravians orMarharii^[1][2] had 11 fortresses orcivitates.^[3] The document locates theMarhari between theBohemians and theBulgars, and also makes mention of theMerehani and their 30 fortresses.^[2]

According to Havlík, who writes thatConversion is a consolidated version of notes made by several authors in different years, the Moravians are twice mentioned in the text: first asMarhari, and next asMerehani. He says, that the reference to theMarhari and their 11 fortresses was made between 817 and 843, and the note of theMerehani shows the actual state under Svatopluk I.^[4]

In contrast with Havlík, Steinhübel together with Třeštík and Vlasto identify theMerehani with the inhabitants of thePrincipality of Nitra.^[5][6][7]

A third view is presented by Püspöki-Nagy and Senga, who write that the reference to theMerehanii – who obviously inhabited the southern regions of the Great Hungarian Plains to the north of the Danube, but south of the territories dominated by the Bulgars – and their 30 fortresses shows the existence of another "Moravia" in Central Europe.^[2][8][9]

According to Komatina, they lived in the valleys of present-dayMorava river basin inSerbia, and were still unconquered by the Bulgarians.^[10] However, after 845, the Bulgars added these Slavs to theirsocietas (they are last mentioned in 853).^[11]

Est populus quem vocant Merehanos, ipsi habent civitates XXX. Iste sunt regiones, que terminant in finibus nostris.

• Barford, P. M. (2001).The Early Slavs: Culture and Society in Early Medieval Eastern Europe. Cornell University Press.ISBN 0-8014-3977-9.
• Bowlus, Charles R. (1994).Franks, Moravians and Magyars: The Struggle for the Middle Danube, 788–907. University of Pennsylvania Press.ISBN 0-8122-3276-3.
• Goldberg, Eric J. (2006).Struggle for Empire: Kingship and Conflict under Louis the German, 817–876. Cornell University Press.ISBN 978-0-8014-7529-0.
• Havlík, Lubomír E. (2013).Kronika o Velké Moravě[=Chronicle of Great Moravia]. Jota.ISBN 80-85617-04-8.
• Püspöki-Nagy, Péter (1978). "Nagymorávia fekvéséről [=On the location of Great Moravia]".Valóság.XXI (11). Tudományos Ismeretterjesztő Társulat:60–82.
• Komatina, Predrag (2010)."The Slavs of the mid-Danube basin and the Bulgarian expansion in the first half of the 9th century"(PDF).Зборник радова Византолошког института.47:55–82.
• Komatina, Predrag (2015). "The Church in Serbia at the Time of Cyrilo-Methodian Mission in Moravia".Cyril and Methodius: Byzantium and the World of the Slavs. Thessaloniki: Dimos. pp. 711–718.
• Senga, Toru (1983). "Morávia bukása és a honfoglaló magyarok[=The fall of Moravia and the Hungarians occupying the Carpathian Basin]".Századok (2). Magyar Történelmi Társulat:307–345.
• Steinhübel, Ján (2011).Kapitoly z najstarších dejín českých 531–1004[=Chapters from the oldest Czech history 531–1004]. Spolok Slovákov v Poľsku – Towarzystwo Słowakow w Polsce.ISBN 978-83-7490-370-7.
• Třeštík, Dušan (2010).Vznik Velké Moravy. Moravané, Čechové a štřední Evropa v letech 791–871[The Formation of Great Moravia. Moravians, Czechs and Central Europe in the years 791-871]. Nakladatelství lidové noviny.ISBN 978-80-7422-049-4.
• Vlasto, A. P. (1970).The Entry of the Slavs into Christendom: An Introduction to the Medieval History of the Slavs. Cambridge University Press.ISBN 978-0-521-10758-7.

• 9th century in Serbia
• 9th century in Romania
• History of Banat
• Great Moravia
• West Slavic tribes
• South Slavic tribes