birthplace

American  

[burth-pleys] / ˈbɜrθˌpleɪs /

noun

birthplaces plural

1. place of birth or origin.

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birthplace British  

/ ˈbɜːθˌpleɪs /

noun

1. the place where someone was born or where something originated

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• birthplaces
  plural

Etymology

Origin of birthplace

First recorded in 1600–10; birth + place

Explanation

The city or country where someone is born is their birthplace. If you move to Atlanta, Georgia, you can tell your friends you live in the birthplace of Martin Luther King, Jr. You'll often find the word birthplace describing the origin of a famous person, whether you're visiting the birthplace of Elvis Presley in Mississippi or reading about Tuskegee, Alabama, the birthplace of Rosa Parks. Birthplace also shows up on official documents like passport applications, which require you to prove your birthplace by submitting a birth certificate. The Middle English version of this word was birthstede, from stede, or "place."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

birthplace birthplaces

The funeral, a days-long period of mourning, is set to end on Thursday, when Khamenei’s body will return from Iraq to be buried in the city of Mashhad, his birthplace.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026

The final burial is on Thursday at the sprawling Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad, the ayatollah's birthplace and Iran's holiest city.

From BBC ● Jul. 7, 2026

In Philadelphia, the birthplace of America, July 4 will cap a 16-day event billed as the largest Independence Day celebration in the country.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 4, 2026

Not only is it a lower-cost part of the country compared to the birthplace of semiconductors in Silicon Valley, but engineers are less likely to be poached from far away, he said.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 3, 2026

In August, while German armies were marching through Belgium, Russian troops invaded the province of East Prussia, the historic birthplace of the German Empire.

From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman

The answer lies in a process called "radial migration" -- stars gradually moving outward from their birthplaces by interacting with spiral waves in the Galaxy.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 29, 2026

But Fifa said investigators obtained original birth certificates of the grandparents, which showed that they were born in countries like Argentina and Spain - all corresponding with the players' birthplaces.

From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2025

That pattern matches a practice ethnographers call patrilocality, in which men stay put while women leave their birthplaces to find mates, a pattern also seen in ancient European farmers, among others.

From Science Magazine ● Apr. 24, 2024

Each year, hordes of them surge from the ocean into Canada’s rivers and streams, swimming back to their birthplaces to spawn.

From Scientific American ● Oct. 30, 2023

There were millions of other Americans who had left their birthplaces in search of a dream.

From "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie