What is the name of the fictional village where Miss Marple lives?

Miss Marple lives in the fictional English village of St. Mary Mead. The village is the home base for Agatha Christie's elderly amateur detective, whose knowledge of local personalities helps her understand crimes far beyond the village itself.

St. Mary Mead first appears in The Murder at the Vicarage, published in 1930, Miss Marple's first full-length novel. Christie presents the village as a seemingly peaceful community where gossip, social rivalries, concealed affairs and long-standing grudges provide clues to human behaviour. Miss Marple repeatedly compares crimes elsewhere with incidents she has observed in village life.

A common mix-up is King's Abbot, the fictional village associated with Hercule Poirot's investigation in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Chipping Cleghorn is another Christie village, featured in A Murder Is Announced, but it is not Miss Marple's home. Christie wrote 12 novels and 20 short stories featuring Miss Marple, and St. Mary Mead remains the character's defining setting.