The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important location for the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. The greater part of the area is now administered as the Government Office Regions of the West Midlands and East Midlands, though parts of the traditional Midlands are also in surrounding regions, namely Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough (East of England), Oxfordshire (South East), Gloucestershire (South West) and Northern Lincolnshire (Yorkshire and the Humber).

The Midlands does not correspond to any current administrative area, and there is therefore no strict definition. However, it is generally considered to include the counties of Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Rutland, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, the West Midlands and Worcestershire. Lincolnshire is considered by some part of the Midlands but generally excluded on account of its extensive coastline. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica describes Gloucestershire as "west midland", Bedfordshire as "south midland", and Huntingdonshire as "east midland" counties respectively.