Middle-earth is the fictional region where most of The Lord of the Rings occurs.
In Tolkien’s mythology, Middle-earth is not another planet or the entire world. It is the central inhabited region of Arda, the world created within Tolkien’s legendarium. The main narrative travels through places such as the Shire, Rivendell, Moria, Rohan, Gondor, and Mordor, all of which lie in Middle-earth.
The name translates the Old English middangeard, a term associated with the human world in Germanic tradition. Tolkien used it to give his invented history a linguistic and mythological connection to the real medieval past.
Valinor and Aman are often confused with Middle-earth. They are lands in the West, across the sea, and play major roles in the larger mythology, but they are not the principal setting of The Lord of the Rings. The story’s central journey remains within Middle-earth.