Heartland is based on the Heartland book series written by Lauren Brooke, adapted into a Canadian family drama that debuted on CBC Television in 2007.

With the airing of its 125th episode on October 19, 2014, Heartland surpassed Street Legal as the longest-running one-hour scripted drama in Canadian television history.

The third-season premiere brought in over one million viewers, setting a new viewership record for the show, while the 100th episode 'After All We've Been Through' was watched by 945,000 viewers.

Much of the series is filmed on location in and around High River, Alberta, with additional filming in studio and on location in nearby Calgary.

A June 2013 flood in High River swamped the standing set for Maggie's Diner, though the main Heartland sets escaped damage; seventh season scripts were rewritten to move shooting locations for the fictional town of Hudson to Inglewood, a historic neighbourhood in downtown Calgary.

A month after the 2013 flood, the show's Calgary studios offered behind-the-scenes tours to paying fans for a one-day 'Heartlanders for High River' fundraiser, raising $80,000 to help the town recover.

Heartland filmed some of its interiors at Currie Barracks, an abandoned military base scheduled for redevelopment.

A six-part spin-off web series titled Hudson, starring Jade Virani as the protagonist, was released on CBC Gem on March 31, 2019, and won the Best Web Series award at the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers's second annual Stinger Awards.