What is the difference between 世の中 and 世界 when meaning "the world" and "society?" {}{} has a few different meanings, but when I looked it up in the dictionary, I saw one definition as a noun had some overlap with {}{}, a piece of vocabulary I'd learned earlier: * : society, the world, the times * : the world, society, the universe Is used interchangeably with this meaning for ? The "the times" definition for the former (alongside "society") as well as this answer make me think it might be used in contexts such as "in this day and age" and such, whereas the latter might be used to described the physical world — is that the case?

is " **(human)** society **(around us)** " or " **(this human)** world". is often interchangeable with . You may use "world" as a translation of only when it refers to _this_ human society you are familiar with. For example, "(Wow) it's a small world!" is (or ) in Japanese. / basically refers to the society as far as you can personally recognize and interact with through daily conversations, media, economic activities, etc.

is a word that corresponds to "world" in nearly all cases. You can say "all over the world", "fantasy world", "the world of classical music", "the world of Harry Potter", "another world" and so on.

See also: and -- what is the difference?

**EDIT:** For example, ("How works") typically refers to things like politics, tax, police, schools and such, while typically refers to more fundamental things like gravity, inertia, atoms, time and DNA.