the.com/heathland

means An open stretch of acidic, sandy or peaty land covered in low shrubby plants like heather and gorse, too infertile for crops but rich in its own scrubby way.

from Simply 'heath' plus 'land' — and 'heath' itself is ancient, traced back through Old English hæð to a Proto-Germanic root also behind German Heide, all pointing at open, uncultivated country. That same old root gave English 'heathen,' since people of the wild, untamed heaths were seen by town-dwellers as outside civilized, Christianized life — a telling bit of linguistic snobbery baked right into the land's name.