The Shire

The Shire is the homeland of the Hobbits in the northwest of Middle-earth, a small, fertile, and peaceful country in the region of Eriador. A land of green fields, farms, woods, and rivers, dotted with villages and the round-doored holes in which many hobbits dwell, the Shire is a place of comfort, plenty, and quiet content, largely untouched by and ignorant of the wider perils of the world. It is the home of Bilbo and Frodo, and the starting point of the great quests of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

The Shire's hobbits are a homely, unadventurous folk who love good food, good ale, peace, and the tending of their gardens and fields. They keep little memory of kings and care nothing for the great affairs of Elves and Men, yet from among them come the unlikely heroes who bear the One Ring to its doom.

Geography

The Shire lies in Eriador, east of the Far Downs and west of the Brandywine River (the Baranduin), which forms its eastern boundary near the land of Buckland. It is divided into four Farthings, North, South, East, and West, with the chief town at Michel Delving in the Westfarthing. Notable places include Hobbiton and Bywater in the central Shire, where Bag End stands; the Green Hill Country; the Marish in the boggy east; and the Three-Farthing Stone at the land's center. The road through the Shire runs east toward Bree.

Much of the land is given over to farms and gardens, with the hobbits dwelling in holes dug into hillsides or in houses built in the same low, comfortable style.

History

The Shire was settled by hobbits in the Third Age, granted to them by the King at Fornost in the days of the northern kingdom of Arnor. After the fall of that kingdom, the Shire continued to govern itself in the kings absence, keeping the forms of the old order, a Mayor, the Thain, and the Master of Buckland, while watched over, unbeknownst to most hobbits, by the Dúnedain Rangers who guarded its borders against the dangers of the wild.

In the story

From the Shire, Bilbo sets out on the adventure of The Hobbit and returns with the One Ring. Years later Frodo inherits it and leaves the Shire with Sam, Merry, and Pippin to bear the Ring to Rivendell and beyond. At the end of the War of the Ring, the four hobbits return to find the Shire despoiled and enslaved under the fallen Saruman (going by the name Sharkey), and they raise the hobbits to cast out the ruffians in the Scouring of the Shire, restoring their homeland to peace.