Heuvelachtige

Heuvelachtige is a Dutch adjective meaning hilly or characterized by hills. It is formed from the noun heuvel (hill) combined with the suffix -achtig, which conveys the sense of “like” or “resembling.” The base form can appear as heuvelachtig or, when grammatically required by the noun, as heuvelachtige, depending on the noun’s gender and number and the syntactic position.

The term is used to describe landscapes, terrains, or areas that contain visible elevations and undulations, as opposed to flat or level land. It is common in geography, cartography, real estate descriptions, travel writing, and ecological discussions to convey the topographic texture of a region. Typical collocations include heuvelachtig landschap (hilly landscape), heuvelachtige streek (hilly region), and heuvelachtig terrein (hilly terrain). In practice, the nuance can range from gently rolling hills to more pronounced elevations, with phrases such as glooiend or licht heuvelachtig used for milder forms of relief and more rugged terms for steeper areas.

In English translations, heuvelachtig is usually rendered as “hilly.” The word helps distinguish terrains with notable elevation changes from flat or coastal plains and is part of a broader vocabulary describing topography in Dutch.