Sápmi is the cultural region traditionally inhabited by the Sámi people. Sápmi includes the northern parts of Fennoscandia, stretching over four countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Most of Sápmi lies north of the Arctic Circle, bounded by the Barents Sea, Norwegian Sea, and White Sea. In the south, Sápmi extends to the counties of Trøndelag in Norway and Jämtland in Sweden.

Most of the Sámi population is concentrated in a few traditional areas in the northernmost part of Sápmi, such as Kautokeino and Karasjok. Inari is considered one of the centres of Sámi culture. In the past, the Sámi settlement reached much farther south, possibly to present-day Oslo in the west and the lakes Ladoga and Onega in the east.

Sápmi has never been a sovereign political entity. Since 1970s–1990s, the Sámi have had a limited self-governance in the Nordic states, represented by the Sámi Parliaments. The interstate cooperation is organized by the umbrella organization Sámi Council.

Historically, the Scandinavian peoples referred to the Sámi using the exonyms Finns and Lapps, terms now considered outdated or pejorative. In Scandinavian languages, historical names for the region include Finnmǫrk, Lappmarken, and Lappland, and in English, Sápmi has traditionally been called Lapland (/ˈlæp.lænd/). Today, variations of these names persist in smaller cultural, geographic and administrative designations within each country, such as Finnmark County in Norway, Lapland Province in Sweden and Lapland Region in Finland, all of which overlap with Sápmi. The Russian part of the Sápmi is covered by Murmansk Oblast.

Sápmi (and corresponding terms in other Sámi languages) refers to both the Sámi land and the Sámi people. The word Sámi is the accusative-genitive form of the noun Sápmi—making the name's (Sámi olbmot) meaning "people of Sápmi". The origin of the word is speculated to be related to the Baltic word *žēmē, meaning "land". Also Häme, the Finnish name for Tavastia, a historical province of Finland, is thought to have the same origin, and the same word is at least speculated to be the origin of Suomi, the Finnish name for Finland.

Sápmi is the name in Northern Sámi, the most widely spoken of the Sámi languages. In other languages, the following terms are used:

In modern Swedish and Norwegian, Sápmi is known as either Sapmi or Sameland. In Finnish it is known as Saamenmaa or saamelaisalue. In Old Norse, it was historically called Finnmǫrk, a name that later evolved into Finnmark, the name of Norway's northernmost county. In older Swedish, Sápmi was known as Lappmarken or Lappland. Some English language sources refer to Northern Norway and Murmansk Oblast as Norwegian Lapland and Russian Lapland, respectively, especially in the context of tourism marketing.

Lappland became the name of Sweden's northernmost province (landskap) which was divided in 1809, leaving one part in Sweden and other under Finland, which became part of the Russian Empire. The name Lappland remains in use for both the Swedish province of Lapland and the Finnish region of Lapland. Finnish Lapland includes Peräpohjola, a region traditionally considered part of Ostrobothnia. Consequently. Lapland and Sápmi are not interchangeable in the Finnish context. While Rovaniemi is located in Lapland, it is not part of Sápmi.