hinterland vs the sticks

hinterland

noun
  • The rural territory surrounding an urban area, especially a port. 

  • The land immediately next to, and inland from, a coast. 

  • A remote or undeveloped area, a backwater. 

  • Anything vague or ill-defined, especially something that is ill understood. 

  • That which is unknown or unexplored about someone. 

the sticks

noun
  • A remote, rural area; a place that is removed from civilization such as the boondocks. 

  • The set of yardage markers used by a chain crew to indicate the ten yards between the line of scrimmage from the previous first down and the line to gain, which the offense must reach in their series of four downs in order to retain possession of the ball. 

How often have the words hinterland and the sticks occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )