The primary setting of Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Left Hand of Darkness” is the fictional planet Gethen.
Genly Ai, a human envoy from Terra, travels to Gethen on behalf of the Ekumen, a loose association of inhabited worlds. His mission is to persuade Gethen’s nations to join this interplanetary community, but cultural misunderstandings repeatedly complicate his efforts.
Gethen is also called Winter because of its severe, consistently cold climate. Its two major political powers are Karhide and Orgoreyn, and much of the novel follows Ai’s experiences moving between them. Gethenian society is shaped by ambisexual people who have no fixed sex except during a monthly reproductive period, a premise central to the book’s exploration of gender, identity, politics, and trust.
A common mix-up is confusing Gethen with Urras or Anarres, the paired worlds of Le Guin’s later novel “The Dispossessed.” Rocannon, meanwhile, is the title character and setting associated with “Rocannon’s World,” another work in the Hainish universe.