McDonaldland was the name of McDonald's 1971 advertising setting featuring fictional characters.
The campaign presented the restaurant as a colorful fantasy world populated by characters such as Ronald McDonald, Mayor McCheese, the Hamburglar, Grimace, and the Fry Kids. It gave McDonald's a shared visual universe that could appear in commercials, packaging, playgrounds, and restaurant decorations.
McDonaldland was not the name of a single restaurant or a corporate division. It was a fictional advertising world designed to appeal especially to children and families. Different characters had different roles, and their designs changed over time as advertising styles and public attitudes changed.
The campaign is sometimes confused with the names of individual characters, particularly Mayor McCheese or the Hamburglar. McDonaldland refers to the entire setting. Its importance in branding history lies in how McDonald's extended its identity beyond the Golden Arches and menu items into a continuing cast of recognizable story characters.