hinterland

Meaning

Noun

• The land immediately next to, and inland from, a coast.
• The rural territory surrounding an urban area, especially a port.
• A remote or undeveloped area, a backwater.
• That which is unknown or unexplored about someone.
• Anything vague or ill-defined, especially something that is ill understood.

Related

Similar words

• (the) sticks

Origin

• Borrowed from German Hinterland, from hinter + Land, cognate to English hinder ("back, rear") + land. First used in English in 1888 by George Chisholm in his work Handbook of Commercial Geography originally as hinderland, but the current spelling (following German) became more popular. The term is characteristic of a thalassocratic analysis of space (from the point of view of a nation, such as 19th-century Britain, with maritime supremacy).