The Maidan is an unofficial region of Karnataka state of southern India. It lies on the Deccan plateau, east of the hilly Malnad region, which includes the eastern foothills of the Western Ghats range. The Maidan has a gently rolling surface, punctuated by several of the large rivers that rise in the Western Ghats and flow eastward to empty into the Bay of Bengal. It is often subdivided into the northern and southern Maidan. The southern Maidan is made up of the low rolling granite hills between Tumkur and Kolar districts. The northern maidan is a dry, mostly treeless expanse of plateau.

Some of the larger cities and towns of the Maidan include Tumkur, Chitradurga, Bellary, Raichur, and Davangere . Grazing and agriculture are the mainstays of the region, and the main crops include cotton, sorghum, millet, and peanuts.

The Maidan lies in the rain shadow of the Western Ghats, and is generally much drier than coastal Karnataka and the Western Ghats. The region was originally covered by extensive, open-canopied Tropical dry deciduous forests, characterized by the trees Acacia, Albizia and Hardwickia , but much of the original forest has been cleared for agriculture, timber, grazing and firewood. Overexploitation of the forests for fuelwood and fodder has resulted in much of the original forest being degraded into thickets and scrublands. Canthium parriflorum, Cassia auriculata, Dodonea viscosa, Erythroxylum monogynum, Pterolobium hexapetalum and Euphorbia antiquorum are species typical of the thicket and scrubland vegetation.