McDonaldland was the fictional advertising world introduced by McDonald's in 1971.
The campaign presented a colorful fantasy setting populated by characters connected with menu items and restaurant imagery. Ronald McDonald served as the central figure, while characters such as Grimace, the Hamburglar, Mayor McCheese, and Birdie the Early Bird appeared in different periods.
McDonaldland gave the company a recurring story world for television commercials, in-store materials, packaging, and promotional merchandise. It helped make McDonald's branding recognizable to children and families beyond the restaurant's basic product advertising.
The campaign is sometimes treated as though all of its characters appeared at the same time, but the cast changed over the years. Several characters were introduced, redesigned, or retired during the 1970s and later decades. McDonaldland was an advertising setting, not a real place or a separate restaurant chain.