Cornbelt

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The agricultural region of the central United States, especially the Midwest, where corn is the dominant crop grown across vast flat farmland
2. A broad area of the American heartland noted for its extensive corn fields and grain farming, centered on states such as Iowa and Illinois
3. The part of the midwestern United States defined by its large-scale cultivation of corn and related grain crops across the plains

Etymology: "Cornbelt" is a compound of "corn" and "belt," and its history is plain: it is a regional nickname for the heart of the American Midwest, where maize dominates the farmland. The "belt" element follows the pattern of earlier American place names such as "Bible Belt" and "Rust Belt," where a band of territory is named for a single defining trait. The word is a transparent coinage rather than an old term with a complicated past. "Corn" in American usage has long meant maize, the crop that came to define the region's agriculture, and the "belt" suffix simply marks the zone where that crop is grown most intensively. Dictionaries record it as a proper-noun-style term used by farmers, economists and geographers to describe the area stretching across Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and parts of neighbouring states.