Bywater (Middle-earth)
| The Shire | |
|---|---|
| J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium location | |
| Other name(s) |
Sûza, Sûzat (Westron) i Drann (Sindarin) |
| Type | Secluded area settled exclusively by Hobbits |
| Ruler | Thain and Mayor of the Shire |
| Notable locations | Bag End, Buckland, Hobbiton, the Woody End |
| First appearance |
The Hobbit The Lord of the Rings |
| Location | central west of Eriador / Arnor |
| Lifespan | T.A. 1601 – Fourth Age |
| Founder | Marcho & Blanco |
| Capital | Michel Delving on the White Downs |
The Shire is a region of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth, described in The Lord of the Rings and other works. The Shire refers to an area settled exclusively by Hobbits and largely removed from the goings-on in the rest of Middle-earth. It is located in the northwest of the continent, in the large region of Eriador and the Kingdom of Arnor. In the languages invented by Tolkien, its name in Westron was Sûza "Shire" or Sûzat "The Shire", while its name in Sindarin was i Drann.
According to Tolkien, the Shire measured 40 leagues (193 km, 120 miles) from the Far Downs in the west to the Brandywine Bridge in the east, and 50 leagues (241 km, 150 miles) from the northern moors to the marshes in the south. This is confirmed in an essay by Tolkien on translating The Lord of the Rings, where he describes the Shire as having an area of 18,000 square miles (47,000 km2).
The original territory of the Shire was bounded on the east by the Baranduin River, on the north by uplands rising to the old centre of Arnor, on the west by the White Downs, and on the south by marshland south of the River Shirebourn. After the original settlement, hobbits also expanded to the east into Buckland between the Baranduin and the Old Forest, and (much later) to the west into the Westmarch between the White Downs and the Tower Hills.
The Shire was originally divided into four Farthings. The outlying lands of Buckland and the Westmarch were formally added after the War of the Ring, although Buckland had been settled by Hobbits long before the war. Within the Farthings there are some smaller unofficial clan homelands: the Tooks nearly all live in or near Tuckborough in Tookland, for instance. A Hobbit surname often indicates where the family came from: Samwise Gamgee's last name derives from Gamwich, where the family originated. Buckland was named for the Oldbucks (later called the Brandybucks).
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