The article examines the term nærområde, or “neighbouring area”, widely used in the Danish language with relation to situations of different kind and nature that unfold within a specific territory and have a social or otherwise important impact on the surroundings, forming the nærområde within which problems, threats or crises should be treated. Moreover, nærområde marks the “territory” where the consequences of such situations become tangible, giving an indirect indication of the level at which they are to be dealt with. In the course of the study, it has become possible to distinguish three separate levels where nærområde comes into play: a) local, demonstrating a close internal connection with the concept of fællesskab, which is often invoked when an issue at hand has a bearing on local infrastructure; b) regional, with a clear geographical reference to a certain territory where the problem is to be resolved; c) geopolitical, the scope of which remains uncertain due to the changing priorities of the Danish foreign policy. However, the frequent use of nærområde in recent years has given reasons to suggest that it is more than a territory, as it transpires a whole set of values and attitudes, that are being projected at nærområde itself along with a very certain positioning of the actor, which refers to nærområde as an object. Thus, the main goals of the analysis are: to find common contextual features in the situations where nærområde is used, to illustrate, by providing different translations, what shades of meaning the term possesses along with resolving the following questions: whether it is a concept rather than a term and how exactly it corresponds to the Danish values