Backpack
bag carried on one's back
Overview
Description
A backpack, also called knapsack, schoolbag, rucksack, pack, booksack, bookbag, haversack, packsack, or backsack, is in its simplest frameless form, a fabric sack carried on one’s back and secured with two straps that go over the shoulders, and is used to carry goods from one place to another. It can feature an external or internal frame to transfer heavy loads off the user’s shoulders and onto their hips, reducing strain and increasing comfort on long hikes with heavy gear.
Uses
Backpacks are commonly used by hikers and students. They are often preferred to handbags for carrying heavy loads or carrying any sort of equipment, because of the limited capacity to carry heavy weights for long periods of time with the hands.
Large backpacks, used to carry loads over 10 kilograms (22 lb), as well as smaller sports backpacks (e.g., running, cycling, hiking, and hydration), usually offload the largest part (up to about 90%) of their weight onto padded hip belts, leaving the shoulder straps mainly for stabilizing the load. This improves the potential to carry heavy loads, as the hips are stronger than the shoulders. It also increases agility and balance, since the load rides closer to the wearer's own center of mass.
Terminology
The earliest known use of the word backpack dates from 1896 (OED).
The word rucksack is a German loanword mainly used in the US, UK, and other Western countries by hikers and campers. In Middle High German ruck(e) means "back" (dorsum), which led to the Upper German word ruggsack.
The public source identifies “Backpack” as bag carried on one's back. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Backpack, carried and one's.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5843. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1896.
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This entry incorporates text from “Backpack” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.