no-man's-land
limbo, wasteland, Death Valley, nowhere land, uninhabited/uninhabitable/uncharted/unclaimed/lawless/noncombatant/unclaimed land/zone/territory, demilitarized/buffer/dead zone, hostile country, nowheresville, gray area, vacuum, dead space/zone, arid zone, the desert, the wild. This is a difficult phrase to replace at times, not so much because there are no alternatives, but because we are seduced by its familiarity and by the ease with which it springs to mind.
