The Hindi Belt, also known as the Hindi Heartland, is a linguistic region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern and western India where various Central Indo-Aryan languages subsumed under the term 'Hindi' (for example, by the Indian census) are spoken. The Hindi belt is sometimes also used to refer to nine Indian states whose official language is Hindi, namely Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and the union territory of Chandigarh and the National Capital Territory of Delhi. It is also referred to as the Hindi–Urdu Belt or Hindustani Belt by some writers.