Meanings
plural nerdistans
- slangA locus of high-tech industry, particularly a town or suburb where many high-tech workers live.
For a long time, high-tech start-ups have clustered in suburban office parks along freeways, places that are sometimes called “nerdistans.”
2013 September 19, Richard Florida, “The Boom Towns and Ghost Towns of the New Economy”, in The Atlantic, →ISSN1 more example
In the coming decade, we are likely to see the continued migration of traditional high-tech firms to new nerdistans in places like Orange County, Calif., north Dallas, Northern Virginia, Raleigh-Durham and around Redmond, Wash., home base for Microsoft.
1997 September 12, Joel Kotkin, “Escape From Nerdistan”, in The Washington Post - slangA place that appeals to technophiles.
It's a Roomba, an artificially intelligent floor-vacuuming 'bot, and this is the year mountains of them rumbled off the shelves not just of nerdistans like the Sharper Image and Brookstone, but of mainstream players like Costco, Sears and Target.
2006 December 30, Joel Garreau, “The invasion has begun”, in Concord Monitor
Origin
Cite this entry
nerdistan. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nerdistan
“nerdistan.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nerdistan. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “nerdistan,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nerdistan.
Source: nerdistan on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.