Social groups

• Mara people, in northeastern India and western Myanmar
• Mara people (Australia), a tribe of indigenous Australians or Aborigines
• Mara Salvatrucha, a violent street gang in Mexico, Central America, and the United States
• Maravar a dominant caste in Tamil Nadu state in India
• MARA Mature Age Recruitment Alliance. An alliance of guilds for the over 30's playing the free online game Guild Wars

People

• John Andrew Mara, a 19th century Canadian politician, rancher and merchant
• Mara Wilson, child actress
• Tim Mara, former owner of the New York Giants football team
• Wellington Mara, former owner of the New York Giants, son of Tim
• John Mara, current co-owner of the New York Giants, son of Wellington
• Kate Mara, American actress
• Tricia Mara, actress
• nickname of Martti Ahtisaari, a career diplomat and former President of Finland
• nickname for Maria (given name) in Bulgarian, Croatian, and Serbian
• nickname for Tamara

Geography

• Mara, Tanzania, an administrative region of Tanzania
• Mara (SS), a commune on the Italian island of Sardinia
• Mara, South Africa, a small town in South Africa
• Mara River (Iza), a river in Romania
• Mara (torrent), a stream of Italy and Switzerland
• Mara River, a river of Kenya and Tanzania
• Masai Mara, a reserve near the Mara River
• Mara, Spain, a municipality

Culture

• Mara (goddess), from Latvian mythology
• Mara (folklore), a wraith-like creature in Germanic and particularly Scandinavian folklore, thought to cause nightmares.
• Mara, also Marena and Morana, in Slavic peoples mythology, the goddess of darkness, death, winter, the Moon and horror
• Naomi (Bible), self-named Mara, meaning "bitterness", after she suffered the deaths of her husband and her two sons
• Mara, a Sanskrit and Pali word meaning death-bringing or the destroying
• Mara (Hindu goddess), the goddess of death according to Hindu mythology
• Mara (demon), a "demon" of the Buddhist cosmology, the personification of Temptation
• Sri Mara or Mara Varma, an honorific title of the Pandya kings of south India
• In Hindu mythology, a mantra told to Valmiki to chant
• Mara, an abbreviation of Mayura

Fiction

• the Mara (Doctor Who), an evil being in two Doctor Who serials
• Marller ("Mara"), a demon in the manga and anime series Oh My Goddess!
• Mara Jade, a character in the Star Wars Expanded Universe
• Mara of the Acoma, lead character in the Raymond E. Feist / Janny Wurts "Empire" Trilogy
• in the Childe Cycle of Gordon R. Dickson, one of the two homeworlds of the Exotics
• a goddess in the video game series The Elder Scrolls
• Mara, Lord of Illusion, a powerful character in Roger Zelazny's novel Lord of Light
• in the animated series BlackStar, a sorceress from the planet Sagar
• one of the Deities in The Belgariad, by David Eddings
• Mara (comics), a character in the Micronauts comic book series
• Mara, the main character in the Eloise Jarvis McGraw book Mara, Daughter of the Nile
• the SF Mara, a fast and agile Shivan fighter in the game FreeSpace 2
• Mara, a character in Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann's "A Step Towards Gomorrah"
• Mara is the antagonist of Disneyland's Indiana Jones Adventure attraction
• Mara, a magic seller in the game Diablo II Lord of Destruction
• Mara, a character inn the Redwall series by Brian Jacques
• Mara, a character in the animated series The New Adventures of He-Man
• Mara Aramov, the antagonist of the Syphon Filter series
• Mara, in the game The Matrix Online, the main location for commerce and combat on non-hostile servers
• Mara, a character in Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo

Organisations

• Majlis Amanah Rakyat, literally People's Trust Council, a government-linked company in Malaysia
• Migration Agents Registration Authority an Australian organisation that registers and monitors Migration Agents

Other

• Mara (mammal), a species of the cavy family
• Mara the Lioness, animal actor in the movie Born Free
• Mara (album), a 1995 album by Scottish band Runrig
• MARA, a dental appliance used to correct an over or underbite
• MARA (Law), the Michigan Antitrust Reform Act, passed in 1984
• Mara (song), a song by Country Joe and the Fish
• Touched by the mara, a song by Pyramaze in Immortal (Pyramaze album)