Gondor
where Boromir died and Aragorn returned
The Story
Gondor was Elendil's southern kingdom, founded by his sons Isildur and Anárion when Númenor drowned and the Faithful sailed east in exile. For three thousand years it stood, at its height the power that held the line against Mordor; at its end a Stewardship waiting on a king who never came.
Boromir came to Rivendell to ask the wisdom of the Wise about his father's failing realm. He died at Amon Hen with arrows in his chest, defending hobbits. Faramir his brother stood at Osgiliath while the East ate westward. Denethor the Steward looked into a captured palantír and despaired, and burned in the fire of his own hall.
Then a Ranger named Strider sailed up out of the Stone of Erech, the Black Ships unfurled the standard he had unfurled at last, and Gondor learned its king had returned. The Pelennor Fields were the hinge on which the Third Age turned.
The Land
Gondor sits in the great angle of two stone arms, the White Mountains running east to west, the Mountains of Shadow running north to south across the Anduin. The river runs the eastern edge; the sea opens to the southwest in the Bay of Belfalas, with the swan-prowed ships of Dol Amroth on its peninsula.
- Minas Tirith, the seven-tiered white city, set against the eastern end of the White Mountains where the range meets the Pelennor.
- Osgiliath, ruined city on the Anduin between Minas Tirith and Mordor's gate.
- Pelennor Fields, the wide farmland around Minas Tirith walled by the Rammas Echor, where the Witch-king fell.
- Ithilien, the green province east of the Anduin between the river and the Mountains of Shadow.
- Lebennin & Belfalas, the southern lowlands and the warm Bay coastline.
- Dol Amroth, princely city on the peninsula projecting into the Bay; the swan-ship banner.
- Pelargir, port city where the Anduin meets the Bay of Belfalas.