backlandn.

1488–1927 [see Dict. Older Sc. Tongue and Sc. National Dict. ].

1683 W. Penn Let. Free Soc. Traders 1 The Back-Lands being..Richer than those that lie by Navigable Waters.

1783 G. Morris in J. Sparks Life G. Morris (1832) I. 248 The back lands are as important in the eyes of some, as the fisheries.

1830 W. S. Moorsom Lett. from Nova Scotia 130 A few families who occupy the back~lands of Great Tracadie.

1853 in Fourteenth General Rep. Colonial Land & Emigration Commissioners (1854) 206 Roads leading to and from the river will be reserved for public use, and as a means of access to the back lands.

1901 A. W. Jose Australasia vii. 110 The West Australians..began to explore more systematically their huge backlands.

1934 S. Beckett More Pricks than Kicks 26 Each time I see it [sc. Fingal] more as a back-land, a land of sanctuary.

1909 H. B. C. Sollas & W. J. Sollas tr. E. Suess Face of Earth IV. xiv. 513 The backland is not the starting-point of an active fold-forming force. The Cambrian beds lie just as undisturbed in the backland of Angara as in the foreland of Laurentia.

1956 J. C. Swayne Conc. Gloss. Geogr. Terms 18 Backland, (a) the area between a natural levée and the base of a valley slope. (b) A region behind mountain ranges whether occupied by sea or land, e.g. the Pacific Ocean is described as a backland of the great fold mountains.