In this paper, a two-dimensional core-shell nanowire made of a dielectric core and metallic cladding is proposed for exciting the magnetic resonance on an isolated nanostructure. The key idea is to remove a small portion of the metallic cladding on the nanowire so that the incident magnetic field can be localized in the dielectric core. It is also found that the core-shell nanowire can support the localized surface plasmon, whose resonance frequency mainly depends on the thickness of the metallic cladding. The finite-difference time-domain method is employed to calculate the scattering cross-section of the proposed structure and the near-field distribution of the magnetic field at resonance conditions. The results obtained from this study will advance our fundamental understanding of the light-matter interaction at nanometer scales and facilitate the development of multi-dimensional metamaterials for subwavelength imaging. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3637042]