Middle-earth is a setting that is fictional.
Legend of the Five Rings ( often abbreviated L5R ) is a fictional setting created by John Zinser , Dave Seay , Dave Williams , and John Wick and published by Alderac Entertainment Group in 1995 . Middle-earth is the fictional setting of much of British writer J. R. R. Tolkien 's legendarium . The term is equivalent to the term Midgard of Norse mythology , describing the human-inhabited world , i.e. the central continent of the Earth in Tolkien 's imagined mythological past . Tolkien 's most widely read works , The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , take place entirely in Middle-earth , and Middle-earth has also become a short-hand to refer to the legendarium or its fictional universe . Middle-earth is the north continent of Earth ( Arda ) in an imaginary period of the Earth 's past