Hinterland - Etymology and Usage

Etymology and Usage

Hinterland was from German, where it means literally "the land behind" (a city, a port, or similar), with the English cognate hind land. In English, the term was first used in 1888 by George Chisholm in his work Handbook of Commercial Geography. In German this word sometimes also describes the part of a country where there are only a few people and where the infrastructure is underdeveloped; although Provinz (equal to "province") is more common. The direct analogy in English is "backcountry" or "the countryside". See also the Bush of Alaskan and the Outback of Australian usage.

Hinterland means a rural area surrounding the urban catchment of large cities or agglomerations. It is characterized by a less dense population and infrastructure. In shipping usage, a port's hinterland is the area that it serves, both for imports and for exports. The size of a hinterland can depend on geography, but also on the ease, speed, and cost of transportation between the port and the hinterland.

By analogy, it is the area surrounding a service from which customers are attracted, also called the market area.

Hinterland was applied also to the surrounding areas of former European colonies in Africa, which, although not part of the colony itself, were influenced by the colony.

A further sense in which the term is commonly applied, especially of British politicians, is in talking about an individual's depth and breadth of knowledge of other matters (or lack thereof), specifically of cultural, academic, artistic, literary and scientific pursuits. For instance, one could say, "X has a vast hinterland", or "Y has no hinterland". The spread of this usage is usually credited to Denis Healey (British Defence Secretary 1964-1970 and Chancellor of the Exchequer 1974-1979) and his wife Edna Healey, initially in the context of the supposed lack of hinterland of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.