Mordor

In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional continent of Middle-earth, Mordor (Quenya: [ˈmɔrdɔr]; Sindarin for 'Black Land', Quenya for 'Land of Shadow') is the realm of the Dark Lord Sauron. It lay to the east of Gondor and the great river Anduin, and to the south of Mirkwood. Within Mordor lies Mount Doom (Sindarin: Orodruin, "Fire Mountain"; also Amon Amarth, "Mount Doom"), the volcano central to the destruction of the One Ring. Mordor was surrounded by three mountain ranges, to the north, the west, and the south. These both protected the land from invasion and kept those living in Mordor from escaping. Commentators 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. Tolkien was also familiar with the account of the monster Grendel's unearthly landscapes in the Old English poem Beowulf. 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 Lothlórien.