flatlanders

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
   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
   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
   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
   5. (derogatory, Upper Peninsula of Michigan) Anyone from Wisconsin.

See all 14 meanings of flatlander