Heartland

How to spell heartland

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce heartland

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does heartland mean?

1. nounThe central or most important region of a country, where its core values, industry, or population are concentrated.

Heartland in a sentence

• The campaign focused on small towns in the agricultural heartland.

• Manufacturing has long been the backbone of the industrial heartland.

Where does heartland come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a compound of two old native English words: heart, from Old English 'heorte', and land, from Old English 'land', both inherited from the Germanic roots of the language. While each part is ancient, the joined word 'heartland' is surprisingly modern, appearing only in the early twentieth century. It owes much of its currency to the British geographer Halford Mackinder, who in 1904 wrote of the 'Heartland', the pivotal interior of the Eurasian landmass that he believed any power must control to dominate the world. From that geopolitical sense it spread into general use to mean the central, defining region of a country or movement. The spelling is straightforward once you see it as simply 'heart' plus 'land', though the silent arrangement of the 'ea' in heart is the one place a writer might pause.

How the word is built

• heart (the central organ; figuratively the core)
• land (ground, territory)