A remote or sparsely inhabited region, especially in North America; away from big towns and from the influence of modern life
about that time, you may reckon, if like me you belong to the back-woods, that I began to make up my acquaintance with hard times, and a plenty of them.
If you refer to an area as the backwoods, you mean that it is a long way from large towns and is isolated from modern life. the backwoods of Louisiana. a distant and undeveloped area away from any towns