136 I. 3
Being and Time

position [Stelle] in space as present-at-hand somewhere, but also that as equipment it has been essentially fitted up and installed, set up, and put to rights. Equipment has its place [Platz], or else it 'lies around'; this must be distinguished in principle from just occurring at random in some spatial position. When equipment for something or other has its place, this place defines itself as the place of this equipment-as one place out of a whole totality of places directionally lined up with each other and belonging to the context of equipment that is environmentally ready-to-hand. Such a place and such a muliplicity of places are not to be interpreted as the "where" of some random Being-present-at-hand of Things. In each case the place is the definite 'there' or 'yonder' ["Dart" und "Da"] of an item of equipment which belongs somewhere. Its belonging-somewhere at the time [Die jeweilige Hingehörigheit] corresponds to the [103] equipmental character of what is ready-to-hand; that is, it corresponds to the belonging-to [Zugehörigkeit] which the ready-to-hand has towards a totality of equipment in accordance with its involvements. But in general the "whither" to which the totality of places for a context of equipment gets allotted, is the underlying condition which makes possible the belonging-somewhere of an equipmental totality as something that can be placed, This "whither", which makes it possible for equipment to belong somewhere, and which we circumspectively keep in view ahead of us in our concernful dealings, we call the "region".1

'In the region of' means not only 'in the direction of' but also within the range [Umkreis] of something that lies in that direction. The kind of place which is constituted by direction and remoteness2 (and closeness is only a mode of the latter) is already oriented towards a region and oriented within it. Something like a region must first be discovered if there is to be any possibility of allotting or coming across places for a totality of equipment that is circumspectively at one's disposal. The regional orientation of the multiplicity of places belonging to the ready-to-hand goes to make up the aroundness—the "round-about-us" [das Um-uns-herum]—of those entities which we encounter as closest environmentally. A three-dimensional multiplicity of possible positions which gets filled up with Things present-at-hand is never proximally given. This dimensionality of space is still veiled in the spatiality of the ready-to-hand. The 'above' is what is 'on the ceiling'; the 'below' is what is 'on the floor';


1 'Gegend'. There is no English word which quite corresponds to 'Gegend'. 'Region' and 'whereabout,' perhaps come the closest, and we have chosen the former as the more convenient. (Heidegger himself frequently uses the word 'Region', but he does so in contexts where 'realm' seems to be the most appropriate translation; we have usually so translated it, leaving the English 'region' for 'Gegend'.)

2 'Entferntheit'. For further discussion, see Section 23 and our note 2, p. 138, H. 105.


Being and Time (M&R) by Martin Heidegger