Other forms: heartlands
A heartland is the central region of a country, and its core support. The industrial heartland, party heartlands, in the heartland.
In politics it means the places a party can rely on, and losing a heartland is the sign of a real collapse rather than a bad night. The geographic sense was a theory of world power: whoever controlled the Eurasian heartland would control the world.
1nounheartlandThe central region of a country, and its core support.
“The Midwest is often called the farming heartland of the United States.”
heartland is a region.
Heart plus land, coined in the early twentieth century by the geographer Halford Mackinder.
From heart + land.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA