What does Sûzat mean? Lord of the Rings location explained

Rings of Power just name-dropped one of Middle-earth’s most important, beloved locations – but even if you’re a devout Lord of the Rings fan, you may not know what Sûzat means.

In Season 1, the Harfoots live in Rhovanion, east of the Misty Mountains. Unlike the Hobbits in Lord of the Rings, they’re nomadic by nature; packing up and moving to another place is part of their routine.

However, what is unnatural is leaving the orbit of their fellow Harfoots, and that’s exactly what Poppy and Nori have done with the Stranger in Rings of Power Season 2. In Episode 4, after being separated by a tornado, they make contact with another breed of Hobbit on-screen for the first time: Stoors.

They visit their village, carved out of Rhûn’s epic desert, and learn about a prophecy concerning a specific location: Sûzat.

Sûzat is another name for the Shire

According to Gundabel, the Stoors’ former leader set off to find Sûzat – this is another name for the Shire, the Hobbits’ home in Lord of the Rings.

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When Poppy and Nori mention Sadoc Burrows, their clan’s leader who died in Season 1, it’s a name Gundabel recognizes. It turns out he was a descendant of the Stoors, and an earlier leader tried to find a place “with endless streams of cold water and rolling hills so soft a family could dig a hole and live in it in less than a month… he called it the Sûzat.”

You may have picked this up from context already, but it’s just another name for the Shire, stemming from the Rohirric language. In Sindarin, it’s also known as “i Drann.”

Where is the Shire?

The Shire is a county in Eriador, spanning around 120 miles from the Far Downs in the west to the Brandywine Bridge in the east, and 150 miles from the northern moors to the marshes in the south. According to Tolkien, it’s around 18,000 square miles in total.

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Remember, Hobbiton is just a village in the Shire, but the region is enormous. It was initially divided into four Farthings, until Buckland and Westmarch were considered part of the area after the War of the Ring in the Third Age.

Notably, in Tolkien’s writing, the Harfoots are the first to migrate westward into Eriador from the Vales of Anduin. This began the Hobbits’ Wandering Days, a period of transit through the early Third Age.

Will we see the Shire in Rings of Power?

It’s highly unlikely we’ll see the Shire in Rings of Power, given the show takes place in the Second Age and the region isn’t colonized until the Third Age.

More specifically, the Shire was settled by the Harfoots in the year TA 1601. Before arriving in the Shire, they lived in Cardolan and Rhudar (it’s even been rumored they were fleeing the shadow of Dol Guldur).

It’s expected that the show could end with Isildur losing the One Ring in the Anduin, which happens extremely early in the Third Age, long before the Harfoots get near the Shire.

Make sure you catch up with our recaps of Rings of Power Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, and Episode 5. Read our predictions for the Dark Wizard’s identity, and check out our guides on Círdan, Forodwaith, Valinor aka the Undying Lands, and if Rings of Power is considered canon in Lord of the Rings.