Middle-earth is the fictional continent where most events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings occur. In Tolkien’s mythology, it is part of Arda, the larger world created by the divine Valar and shaped by the history of the Ainur.
The narrative travels through many regions of Middle-earth, including the Shire, Gondor, Rohan, Mordor, and the Misty Mountains. The term does not mean an entire planet or a separate universe; it refers to the central inhabited lands of Tolkien’s imagined world.
Readers sometimes use Middle-earth as if it means every location in Tolkien’s legendarium. However, places such as Valinor lie across the sea, while Númenor was an island kingdom and Beleriand belonged mainly to the earlier First Age.