The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. At a distance of 163,000 light-years, the LMC is the third-closest galaxy to the Milky Way, after the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal and the putative Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, lying close to the Galactic Center. The LMC has a diameter of about 14,000 light-years based on readily visible stars and a mass of approximately 10 billion solar masses, making it roughly 1/100 as massive as the Milky Way.

With a declination of about −70°, the LMC is visible as a faint "cloud" only in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere and from latitudes south of 20° N, straddling the border between the constellations of Dorado and Mensa, and appears longer than 20 times the Moon's diameter (about 10° across) from dark sites away from light pollution.