Definition of "downland"

Hail! every distant hill, and downland plain!Your dew-hid beauties Fancy oft unveils;

1789, Ann Ward Radcliffe, chapter 4, in The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne‎, London: T. Hookham, page 93

[…] I walked on to Canterbury early in the morning. It was now winter again; and the fresh, cold windy day, and the sweeping downland, brightened up my hopes a little.

1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850

I traversed the downlandWhereon the bleak hill-graves of ChieftainsBulge barren of tree;

1898, Thomas Hardy, “My Cicely”, in Wessex Poems and Other Verses‎, New York: Harper, page 126

Shortly after leaving Godshill, a lengthy climb begins through rolling downland country at 1 in 75, easing to 1 in 103.

1946 July and August, K. Westcott Jones, “Isle of Wight Central Railway—2”, in Railway Magazine, page 244

I was surprised to see that the plane had been wrecked, not on one of the hefty cliff faces of our mountain, but on a gentle green hillside, merging into downland.

1958, Muriel Spark, chapter 6, in Robinson‎, New York: New Directions, published 2003, page 66

He drank another whisky then left the pub and climbed slowly up the downlands, bent as the trees and shrubs were bent.

2010, Howard Jacobson, chapter 12, in The Finkler Question‎, New York: Bloomsbury, page 278