Esgaroth

Esgaroth
J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium location
Other name(s)	Lake-town
Type	Town built upon Trade between men, elves and dwarves in Northern Middle-earth River City
Ruler	Master of Lake-town
Location	north-east Rhovanion
Founder	Unknown

Esgaroth, or Lake-town, is a fictitious community of Men upon the Long Lake which appears in the 1937 novel The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. Constructed entirely of wood and standing upon wooden pillars sunk into the lake-bed, the town is south of the Lonely Mountain and east of Mirkwood. The town's prosperity is apparently built upon trade between the Men (descendants of the Edain and thus distant cousins of the Dúnedain of Gondor), Elves and Dwarves of northern Middle-earth.

Esgaroth and Lake-town may have been separate settlements established on the same site, one predating Smaug's destruction of Dale and Erebor and the other built afterwards. There is mention in The Hobbit of "old pilings of a greater town" that could be seen at low tide.

Esgaroth appears to be a city-state, always independent of Dale, and a republic with no king (the only real republic shown in Middle-earth). The people had always elected from among the old and wise the Master of Lake-town and did "not [endure] the rule of mere fighting men."

In the year 2941 of the Third Age the town was attacked by the dragon Smaug, but Bard the Bowman, who had indirectly learned of a weakness in Smaug's armour that had first been noticed by Bilbo Baggins, slew the dragon. The town was wrecked by the dragon, but afterwards it was rebuilt in a different location using some of the treasure that Smaug had stolen, though the town's Master ran off with some of the gold. Part of the town's population followed Bard to resettle the Kingdom of Dale.

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Wikipedia