Question about Nationalities and Hotspots

[Heimdall]

Hey there,
I´m pretty new to the game, played for about 8 hours now. I did not start with a Liberty Char but /restart rheinland since I found them most interesting. However, I noticed that Rheinland isn´t that well populated it seems. This leads me to some questions:

1. When I start at Liberty, I am neutral to every faction, except RP-wise Rheinland which they are at war with, right? But how binding is my nationality? I am only identified as Civilian or Freelancer and have a Civilian Vessel, can I go anywhere I please/join any faction I want(with some RP reasons maybe, like my parents belonged to nationality y but lived in Liberty)?
Can I just start as a "blank" who happens to be on New York atm?
I ask because I want to build up my reps myself instead of "inheriting" them like with Rheinland...

2. Where are the hotspots in the game? Which house has the most active groups etc? I mean, where is stuff going on at the moment? ^^ I haven´t seen a statistic which house/faction has how many members etc.

Thanks!