countryside

From country +‎ -side.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkʌn.tɹiˌsaɪd/

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• Hyphenation: coun‧try‧side

countryside (plural countrysides)

1. An area located outside of towns and cities; an area that is not urban or suburban; a rural area.
   • 1968, Lucian W. Pye, “The Political Process in Action: The Communes”, in The Spirit of Chinese Politics: A Psychocultural Study of the Authority Crisis in Political Development‎, M.I.T. Press, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 203:

     From November 28 to December 8, 1958, the CCP Central Committee held its sixth plenum in Wuhan, Hopei^{[sic – meaning Hupei]}, and at the end of the session it issued a revealing resolution that declared there had been some misconception about the system and that party committees throughout the countryside should make full use of the five months from December 1958 to April 1959 to tidy up the communes.

2. Such part of a larger area.

   We live in the Swedish countryside.

3. A rural landscape.

• Typically used with the definite article.

• sidecountry