An ad zone is a region on a page in which ads display. For example a page on a website could have an ad zone called "Header" and an ad zone called "Right Sidebar". These zones could be for a single page on the site but typically the span all pages on the site. So the ad zone for the header would mean the header area of all pages on the site.
An ad zone is linked to an ad tag. The ad tag is placed in your site’s source code in the location where you want the ad zone to be.