Minas Tirith (IPA: ) is a fictional fortified city in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings, which was the capital of Gondor in the second half of the Third Age. It is often referred to as the White City and the City of Kings.
The city was divided into seven, 100 feet high levels, each surrounded by a white wall. There was an eighth wall, the lowest, which was made of unbreakable black stone, the same material used in Orthanc.
In each wall there was a gate which connected the levels. A spur of rock, the summit of which was level with the city's uppermost tier, jutted out from the hill in an easterly direction, dividing all but the first level into two. Finally, within the seventh wall, was the Citadel with its White Tower of Ecthelion, where the Seeing Stone of Minas Anor was kept — three hundred feet high, so that its top was one thousand feet above the plain. On the saddle between the city and Mindolluin was Rath Dínen (The Silent Street), where the ornate tombs of the Kings of Gondor and their Stewards were built.
Map #40 in Barbara Strachey's Journeys of Frodo is a plan of Minas Tirith. Pages 138&139 in Karen Wynn Fonstad's revised The Atlas of Middle-earth is another plan of Minas Tirith. They are at variance with each other, as the only authoritative maps by Tolkien are just sketches.
Rammas Echor
Minas Tirith was surrounded by the Rammas Echor, a fortified wall encircling the Pelennor Fields and meeting up with Osgiliath, where the Causeway Forts were built and garrisoned, though Osgiliath itself remained in ruins. This outwall was built by Ecthelion II but fell into disrepair as the kingdom declined. His successor Denethor II ordered Osgiliath and the Rammas to be defended, despite the objections of his son Faramir and the other commanders who wanted to retreat back to Minas Tirith and hold out from there. Overall, it proved an ineffective defence due to the overwhelming Orc legions of Mordor, who penetrated the wall and laid siege to the city before the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
Originally known as Minas Anor (the "Tower of the Sun"), Minas Tirith was built in by Anárion, brother of Isildur and second son of Elendil, High King of Arnor. Ostoher rebuilt the city in , and it became the capital of Gondor after the siege and abandonment of Osgiliath. King Tarondor finally moved the King's House from Osgiliath to the City in . In 2002, the White City's companion tower, Minas Ithil (Tower of the Moon), on the borders of Mordor, was captured by the Nazgûl and renamed Minas Morgul (Tower of Dark Sorcery). Minas Anor was renamed Minas Tirith, meaning "Tower of Guard", to indicate that since the fall of Minas Ithil, Minas Tirith assumed the role of guarding Gondor against Mordor's forces. The Rohirrim sometimes translated this into their own language as Mundburg. For the next thousand years, the two cities were in a deadlock, neither able to topple the other. With the rise of the Dark Tower, Minas Tirith was overpowered by the two accursed fortresses until the War of the Ring.
The War of the Ring and afterwards
During the War of the Ring (–3019), Minas Tirith is said to have had less than half of the population which could have dwelt there at ease.
As told in The Return of the King, Minas Tirith was besieged by troops of Mordor, the Easterlings and the Haradrim, under the Great Darkness generated by Mordor. The Battle of the Pelennor Fields took place on March 15, 3019 in the fields surrounding the city. Despite heavy losses, the battle was won by Gondor and its allies from Rohan.
On May 1, 3019 King Elessar's coronation took place on the plain outside Minas Tirith, he then entered the city as King.
Minas Tirith is known to have stood firm well into the Fourth Age.
The eagle who brings the news of Sauron's defeat to Minas Tirith refers to the city as the Tower of Anor. The eagle might have been speaking poetically, but as Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age in The Silmarillion says, the city is referred to Minas Anor again after Sauron's overthrow. However, in the abandoned sequel The New Shadow, which takes place during the time of Elessar's son Eldarion, the city was named Minas Tirith.
Tolkien's description of the physical layout of Minas Tirith is followed relatively faithfully in Peter Jackson's film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, although there is no reason to suppose that the top of the rock is flattened and paved (on the other hand there's no reason to suppose it is not). In the films Minas Tirith is the location for the coronation of Aragorn.
Portions of Minas Tirith were constructed as a full-scale sets, and the whole city as a very large, highly detailed miniature or "bigature" by Weta Workshop. A remarkably detailed three-dimensional digital model, for CGI shots, along with the whole of its surrounding environment including the Pelennor Fields and Mindolluin (but not the Rammas Echor, which was visually omitted from the films, despite being mentioned in the dialogue, where Théoden give the order to the Rohirrim beginning "When we get through the Wall..." quoted directly form the book.) was created by Weta Digital.
The height of Minas Tirith in the films could be estimated to be almost 1,700 feet. In the New Line book: The Lord of the Rings Weapons and Warfare, it tells the seventh level was a quarter of a mile high, 1,320 feet above the plain. The Tower of Ecthelion was over 300 feet tall. (These details do not appear in the original books by Tolkien and thus should not be taken as canon, like most of the other info in said book.)
These numbers nonwithstanding, The Atlas of Middle-earth actually projects Minas Tirith to be much, much larger than what was shown in the film. Fonstad estimates a diameter of 3100 feet for the First Circle of the City alone; the cinematic Minas Tirith appears as large as a castle-town.
Also, Minas Tirith is much more destructible and in fact it takes a beating due to Mordor's catapults; in the book, at least the black outer wall was impervious to missiles, and the enemy troops knew this and did not waste shot upon it.
