Middle Earth Map: Every Main Location in the Films

The Shire is the peaceful hobbit homeland, and it is where both trilogies start. In Fellowship of the Ring, Bilbo Baggins leaves on his 111th birthday and passes the Ring to Frodo, and Gandalf then tells Frodo to flee. An Unexpected Journey opens here too, with the young Bilbo, a quiet homebody, visited by Gandalf, who brings thirteen dwarves to his door.

The Shire is also the place the story returns to. Bilbo goes home at the end of The Battle of the Five Armies, and the hobbits come back at the close of Return of the King, where Sam marries Rosie. On screen, Hobbiton was built at Matamata in New Zealand, according to American Cinematographer. For the story itself, see Frodo Baggins and Bilbo Baggins.

Rivendell is the elven refuge where Frodo is healed and where the Fellowship is formed. After the stabbing at Weathertop, the elf Arwen carries Frodo there, and a council judges the Ring too dangerous to keep or use. Frodo volunteers to carry it to Mount Doom, and nine companions are chosen.

It also appears in The Hobbit. In An Unexpected Journey, Gandalf leads Thorin's company to Rivendell, where the elves help them and warn of growing dangers. That gives the place a role in both journeys, and Elrond, played by Hugo Weaving in the Lord of the Rings films, later helps rescue Gandalf in The Battle of the Five Armies.

Moria is the set of mines that the Fellowship passes through, and it is where the first member is lost. The route through the mines of Moria ends with Gandalf falling into the abyss while he fights a Balrog.

The sequence is the point at which Fellowship of the Ring turns from a journey into a loss, and the group carries on to Lothlorien without him. Gandalf does return, in a new form, in The Two Towers.

Lothlorien is the forest realm of Galadriel, and it is where the Fellowship rests after Moria. There Galadriel warns Frodo that the Ring will test them, and that warning proves right, because Boromir tries to seize the Ring soon afterward and Frodo flees.

Its place on the map matters. Lothlorien is the last pause before the Fellowship breaks, so it separates the first half of the quest from the chase that follows. Cate Blanchett plays Galadriel in the films, and the character returns in The Battle of the Five Armies, when she helps rescue Gandalf from Dol Guldur. See also Galadriel.

Isengard is the stronghold of the wizard Saruman, who has sided with Sauron. In Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf is held prisoner there, and in The Two Towers the Uruk-hai armies that attack Rohan are sent from it.

The Ents, angered by the destruction of their forest, march on Isengard and flood it, which traps Saruman in his tower. The fortress still stands in the later stories, and in The War of the Rohirrim Wulf holds Héra there as a captive, while Saruman keeps Isengard at the end and offers friendship to the new king of Rohan. See Saruman for the character.

Fangorn Forest is the old wood where Merry and Pippin meet the tree-like Ents. The two hobbits escape into it in The Two Towers after the Orcs take them, and there they befriend the Ent Treebeard.

The Ents are slow to decide whether to join the war, which makes the forest a place of delay on the map, and the delay pays off when they march on Isengard. Treebeard is voiced by John Rhys-Davies, who also plays Gimli in the same film.

Rohan is the kingdom of the Rohirrim, and Edoras is the town where King Théoden is found in The Two Towers. Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli follow the Orc trail into Rohan and meet Gandalf, now returned as Gandalf the White. At Edoras, Théoden is under the spell of his adviser Gríma and of Saruman, until Gandalf frees him.

The kingdom has a longer history on screen. The War of the Rohirrim goes back to the reign of King Helm Hammerhand, with Éowyn, played by Miranda Otto, narrating, and Warner Bros. places that film 183 years before the trilogy. Rohan appears again in Return of the King, when a palantír shows that Sauron means to attack Minas Tirith.

Helm's Deep is the fortress where Théoden takes his people rather than fight in the open. A huge Uruk-hai army sent by Saruman attacks, and the defenders, helped by a force of elves, suffer heavy losses before Gandalf arrives at dawn with Éomer and the Rohirrim.

The name has an origin in The War of the Rohirrim. The Rohirrim shelter in the Hornburg through a long winter siege, and at the end the fortress is renamed Helm's Deep in memory of King Helm. That makes the siege in The Two Towers an echo of an older one. War of the Rohirrim covers the earlier siege.

Minas Tirith is the great city of Gondor, and it is the target of Sauron's biggest assault in Return of the King. Gandalf rides there, where the steward Denethor is sinking into grief and despair, and Aragorn later takes the Paths of the Dead to win the Army of the Dead for the fight at the Pelennor Fields.

The battle there is where Théoden is fatally wounded by the Witch-king, who is then killed by Éowyn with help from Merry. Gondor also includes Ithilien, where Faramir's rangers capture Frodo and Sam in The Two Towers. At the close of the trilogy, Aragorn is crowned King of Gondor and united with Arwen. For the king himself, see Aragorn.

Mordor is Sauron's land, and Mount Doom inside it is where the Ring must be destroyed. Frodo and Sam head toward it from the end of Fellowship of the Ring, crossing wastelands and reaching the Black Gate in The Two Towers, with Gollum as their guide.

The approach includes the lair of the giant spider Shelob, and the final climb ends at Mount Doom, where Frodo cannot give up the Ring and Gollum bites it from his hand and falls into the lava with it. Mordor then collapses. Aragorn leads the western armies to the Black Gate as a diversion, so the whole story converges here. See Sauron and Gollum.

Mirkwood is the dark forest that Thorin's company crosses in The Desolation of Smaug. Beorn guides the company to its edge and warns them to keep to the path, but they stray and are caught by giant spiders, and Bilbo frees them using his ring.

The wood-elves led by Tauriel and Legolas then kill the spiders and take the dwarves to King Thranduil, who imprisons Thorin. Bilbo helps the dwarves escape down a river in barrels, so the forest holds three set pieces in one film. Orlando Bloom returns as Legolas here, a link to the earlier trilogy. See Legolas.

Lake-town is the human settlement on the water below the Lonely Mountain, and in The Hobbit it works as both a refuge and a casualty. Bard, a bargeman, gets Thorin's company inside the town unseen, and the Master of Lake-town backs the quest only because he is promised part of the treasure. When Bard plans to use his ancestor's black arrow against the dragon, the Master has him arrested.

The town's real test comes in The Battle of the Five Armies. Smaug sets Lake-town ablaze, and Bard brings the dragon down with that black arrow. The survivors then march to the mountain, since they are owed a share of the gold. Earlier, Tauriel and Legolas fight Bolg's orcs in its streets, so the town hosts a skirmish as well as the disaster. Bard's role is covered in more detail in the Desolation of Smaug entry.

The Lonely Mountain is the dwarf homeland that Thorin's company sets out to win back from Smaug. In An Unexpected Journey they see it from the Carrock, far off, and Smaug stirs. In The Desolation of Smaug, Bilbo finds the hidden door and wakes the dragon by accident.

The mountain is the setting for the final film's conflict, as elves, men and dwarves gather there, each wanting a claim to the treasure. Thorin grows obsessed with the gold and the Arkenstone, and the battle ends with Dain becoming king. For the characters, see Thorin Oakenshield and Smaug.

Dol Guldur is the stronghold that ties The Hobbit to the Ring story, because the evil hiding there turns out to be Sauron. Gandalf and Radagast search the tombs of the Nazgul and find nothing inside, which tells them the Nine have been summoned to this fortress. Gandalf enters alone and is overpowered by the Necromancer, who is then revealed as Sauron.

The fortress returns in The Battle of the Five Armies, where Galadriel, Elrond and Saruman free Gandalf and force Sauron out. The Lord of the Rings timeline shows how this rescue leads toward the events of the later trilogy.

In my opinion, the most useful thing about the Middle Earth map is that the two trilogies use it differently. The Lord of the Rings films follow one long road, from the Shire to Mount Doom, so each location is a step on Frodo's journey. The Hobbit films follow Thorin's company to one mountain, and the Lonely Mountain is where the story gathers elves, men and dwarves for the final battle.

It could be argued that Rohan is the best example of how the map carries story. Helm's Deep appears in The Two Towers as a siege that nearly fails, and The War of the Rohirrim later explains where the name comes from, which gives the older fortress a history. That is a rare case of a spin-off adding to a set piece rather than repeating it.

Perhaps the neatest thread is Dol Guldur. It sits in the Hobbit story as a side plot, but it is where the Necromancer is revealed to be Sauron. If you are planning a rewatch, I would follow the map by place: start in the Shire, use the Lord of the Rings movies in order guide to pick the film, and return here for each new location. The Hunt for Gollum is dated for December 2027, and it is in production in New Zealand.