The interior of Mordor was composed of three large regions. Others have observed that Tolkien depicts Mordor as specifically evil, and as a vision of industrial environmental degradation, contrasted with either the homey Shire or the beautiful elvish forest of Lothlorien.įurther information: Mount Doom and Barad-dûr Another forerunner that Tolkien was very familiar with is the account of the monster Grendel's unearthly landscapes in the Old English poem Beowulf.

These both protected the land from invasion and kept those living in Mordor from escaping.Ĭommentators have noted that Mordor was influenced by Tolkien's own experiences in the industrial Black Country of the English Midlands, and by his time fighting in the trenches of the Western Front in the First World War. Mordor was surrounded by three mountain ranges, to the north, the west, and the south. Mount Doom, a volcano in Mordor, was the goal of the Fellowship of the Ring in the quest to destroy the One Ring. It lay to the east of Gondor and the great river Anduin, and to the south of Mirkwood. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, Mordor (pronounced from Sindarin Black Land and Quenya Land of Shadow) is the realm and base of the evil Sauron. The Land of Shadow, the Black Land, the Nameless Land 3019īarad-dûr (the Dark Tower), Mount Doom, the Morannon (Black Gate), Cirith Ungol, Gorgoroth, Udûn Mordor (red) and its sphere of influence (pink) within Middle-earth, T.A.

Lord of the rings emblems