Anduin

The Anduin, also called the Great River, was the longest and mightiest river of western Middle-earth in the Third Age. Rising in the far north and flowing southward for over a thousand miles before emptying into the Great Sea, it formed the principal waterway of the lands east of the Misty Mountains and a defining boundary of the realm of Gondor.

Course

The Anduin's headwaters gathered in the Vales of Anduin, fed by streams from the Misty Mountains and the Grey Mountains. It flowed past the eaves of the forest of Mirkwood and the realm of Lothlórien, where it was joined by the Silverlode out of Caradhras. Below Lothlórien the river broadened, passing the wide flats and the great falls of Rauros, marked by the carved pillars of the Argonath, the Pillars of the Kings.

Below Rauros lay the marshes of the Nindalf and the inflow of the Entwash out of Rohan. Further south the river wound past Minas Tirith and the crossings near Osgiliath before spreading into its delta at the Mouths of Anduin, where the haven of Pelargir stood.

History

The Anduin features heavily in the history of the Third Age. It was near the Gladden Fields, where the river met the Gladden stream, that Isildur was slain and the One Ring was lost into the water, eventually to be found there by Déagol and Sméagol.

The Fellowship of the Ring travelled by boat down the Anduin from Lothlórien, and it was at the falls of Rauros that the Fellowship was broken. The river long served as a frontier and lifeline of Gondor, and control of its crossings was central to the defence of the West during the War of the Ring.