Middle-Earth

Middle-Earth is a fictional location which serves as the primary setting of the works of author J.R.R. Tolkien, and appear in the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings film franchises. It first appeared in the 1977 animated movie The Hobbit by Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass. It appeared next in the 1978 animated adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. Middle-Earth made its live-action debut in 2001 when director Peter Jackson unleashed Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring onto the world. Naturally, it was also the provincial setting of the film's two sequels, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. It took Peter Jackson less than a decade to revisit the magical world once again, but he did it anyway with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which should have been a simple stand-alone film, but instead stretched over into two more installments, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

Description
Middle-Earth is a continent on the world of Arda, also known as Earth. It exists in an alternate reality from that of the so-called "real" world. Middle-Earth is analogous to real world locations and occupies the space that is identified as Europe and Asia. This is the only known habitable region of Arda and is occupied by various races including Humans, Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and the occasional Balrog.

Films that take place in

 * Hobbit, The
 * Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The
 * Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, The
 * Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, The
 * Lord of the Rings, The
 * Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
 * Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
 * Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King