flatlander

Noun

flatlander (plural flatlanders)

1. (derogatory) A person who lives at, lived at, or was raised by someone at a low altitude or from any city. A person not raised in or by someone directly from high mountain areas. (used by those who were born, raised, and are still living in higher altitude non-city or city like areas).
   • Texans ski, Virginian's ski, New Englander's ski, flatlanders from the Midwest ski. We now have more than 3,000,000 skiers in North America and more than 600 organized ski areas (plus the many small areas with rope tows) to choose from ...1967, Morten Lund, Bob Laurie, Skiers' Paradise: 100 Best Ski Runs in North America, New York: Putnam
   1. (US, Western, derogatory, especially) Anyone from the East; anyone from outside the Rockies.
      • [...as] Rocky Mountain News termed it. Although some potential visitors would wonder whether it was safe, especially "flatlanders" unaccustomed to mountain driving, Trail Ridge provided a perfect roadbed […]1983, C. W. Buchholtz, Rocky Mountain National Park: A History, University Press of Colorado
      • Ahead stretched the great Rocky Mountains. For this family of Iowa flatlanders, it was a spectacular sight.2003, Gayle Tow, Beyond the Golden Gate: A Pioneer Woman's Journey from California's Gold Country to Oregon's Fertile Tillamook Valley, →ISBN
   2. (Appalachia, derogatory) Any outsider to Appalachia.
      • Briefly put, the image of the "poor" in Appalachia imposed by the poverty workers on these people relies on a faulty model. […] In their own efforts to explain the wary attitudes of Appalachian people toward "flatlanders," the poverty workers […]1969, Steward Anthropological Society, Journal of the Steward Anthropological Society
      • […] the mountain folk, as a group, much more frequently opposed the "flatlanders."1991, Conference on the Appalachian Frontier, Shenandoah Valley Historical Institute, American Frontier Culture Foundation, Appalachian Frontiers: Settlement, Society & Development in the...
   3. (Appalachia, derogatory, northern central Pennsylvania) Anyone from southern Pennsylvania (particularly around Philadelphia), New Jersey, or other low-lying areas outside the Alleghenies / Appalachians.
      • In north central Pennsylvania there are two types of people— ridge runners and flatlanders. The mountain men of north central Pennsylvania are called ridge runners. I've met many, liked a few, and recorded the stories of two, […]2007, Vance Dunbar, Rattlers & Snappers: Reptiles, Amphibians, and Outlaws, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 61
      • This paper will examine the tradition of these urbanites from cities like Pittsburgh, New Castle, Sharon, and Erie, Pennsylvania; and Cleveland, Akron, and Youngstown, Ohio; who have been termed "flatlanders," ...2008, Joseph L. Scarpaci, Kevin Joseph Patrick, Pittsburgh and the Appalachians: Cultural and Natural Resources in a Postindustrial Age, University of Pittsburgh Pre, →ISBN, page 203
   4. (Maine, derogatory, Vermont) Any non-native, but particularly one from southern New England (including Massachusetts), downstate New York, or New Jersey.
      • […] Abenaki resistance in the eighteenth century than with the westward migration of New Englanders in the nineteenth century, but the Abenakis initiated that now time-honored Vermont tradition of discouraging flatlanders from settling here.1992, Michael Sherman, Jennie G. Versteeg, We Vermonters: Perspectives on the Past
      • […] southern New Englanders still generally consider their northern brethren to be quaint country bumpkins, and northern New Englanders are still regularly heard referring to their southern brethren, with unmistakable derision, as "flatlanders."2001, Dave Preble, The Fishes of the Sea: Commercial and Sport Fishing in New England, Sheridan House, Inc., →ISBN, page 30
   5. (derogatory, Upper Peninsula of Michigan) Anyone from Wisconsin.
   6. (derogatory, Northern Michigan) Anyone from lower Michigan (those south of Mt. Pleasant).
   7. (derogatory, Lower Michigan) Anyone from Indiana or Ohio.
   8. (derogatory, Wisconsin) Anyone from Illinois.
   9. (Canada, derogatory) Anyone from Saskatchewan.
   10. (Georgia, derogatory) Anyone from Florida.
   11. (derogatory, Central Coast NSW) Anyone from Umina.
2. An inhabitant of or observer in a universe with two spatial dimensions.
   • To the flatlander the third dimension necessarily appears to be a process, something he travels through as he moves or is shifted across an area. He cannot occupy more than one position in the third dimension simultaneously.1978, Henry Wesley Grayson, The Theory of Relativity Revisited
   • The perceptual acts of the two-dimensional flatlander are seen by the projective Euclidean eyes as funny, [...]1979, “A Form of Pantomime”, in Link, volume 21, part 3, page 86
3. A flatland BMX rider.