Hindi continuum

Hindi Belt
The Hindi Belt in red
Native to	Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand
Ethnicity	Awadhis, Bhojpuris, Marwaris, etc..
Native speakers	422 million (2001) L2 speakers: 98 million (2001)
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Hindi Belt Hindi Belt
Standard forms	Standard Hindi
Dialects	Awadhi Bhojpuri Bagheli Bagri bhasa Braj Bhasha Bundeli Caribbean Hindustani Chattisgarhi Dakhini Fiji Hindi Haryanvi Kanauji Khariboli (Dehlavi) Magahi Marwari-Merwari Rajasthani bhasa
Writing system	Devanagari for Hindi Braille (Hindi Braille) Kaithi (historical) Latin script
Official status
Official language in	India (Hindi)  Fiji (Fiji Hindi)
Recognised minority language in	Mauritius  Suriname (as Sarnami Hindoestani)  Guyana (as Guyanese Hindustani)  Trinidad and Tobago (as Trinidadian Hindustani)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	hi, ur
ISO 639-2	hin, urd, awa, bho, mag, mwr
ISO 639-3	Variously:  – Hindi  – Urdu  – Haryanvi  – Kanauji  – Bundeli  – Awadhi  – Bhojpuri  – Chhattisgarhi  – Bagheli  – Caribbean Hindustani  – Fiji Hindi  – Magahi  – Sadri  – Marwari  – Malvi  – Lambadi  – Hadothi, Haroti  – Godwari  – Bagri  – Garhwali  – Kumaoni  – Kangri

The Hindi Belt or Hindi Heartland is a loosely defined linguistic region in north-central India where varieties of are widely spoken. It is sometimes also used to refer to those Indian states whose official language is Hindi and have a Hindi-speaking majority, namely Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.

Hindi, in the broad sense, is that part of the Indo-Aryan dialect continuum that lies within the cultural Hindi Belt in the northern plains of India. In the words of Masica (1991), these [languages] are the so-called regional languages of the Hindi area, sometimes less accurately called Hindi "dialects". Hindi in this broad sense is an ethnic rather than a linguistic concept.

This broad definition of Hindi is one of the ones used in the Indian census, and results in a clear majority of Indians being reported to be speakers of Hindi, though Hindi-area respondents vary as to whether they call their language Hindi or use a local language name. As defined in the 1991 census, Hindi has a broad and a narrow sense. The name "Hindi" is thus ambiguous.

The broad sense covers a number of Central, East-Central, Eastern, and Northern Zone languages, including the Bihari languages except Maithili, all the Rajasthani languages, and the Pahari languages except Western Pahari and Nepali. This is an area bounded on the west by Punjabi and Sindhi; on the south by Gujarati, Marathi, and Odia; on the east by Maithili and Bengali; and on the north by Nepali, Kashmiri, and Tibetic languages. Linguistically, the varieties of this belt can be considered separate languages rather than dialects of a single language.