McDonaldland was the name of McDonald's advertising world introduced in the early 1970s for its branded characters.
The fictional setting provided a shared backdrop for Ronald McDonald, Grimace, the Hamburglar, Mayor McCheese, and other figures. Instead of presenting each character in an unrelated commercial, McDonaldland gave McDonald's a recognizable imaginary landscape that could support recurring stories and visual motifs.
McDonaldland is sometimes confused with the Happy Meal brand. The Happy Meal was a restaurant promotion introduced in 1979, while McDonaldland was the broader advertising universe that helped define McDonald's character branding during the 1970s.
The campaign made McDonald's especially visible to children and families. Its colorful locations, talking food-themed characters, and repeated television appearances extended the brand beyond the restaurant building and menu into a distinctive fictional world.