Races of Middle-earth: The Complete Guide to Every People and Creature
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Quick Answer: The races of Middle-earth fall into three groups. The free peoples are Elves, Dwarves, Men, Hobbits and Ents. The spirits clothed in bodies are the Wizards (Maiar), the Balrogs and Sauron himself. The creatures of the Enemy are Orcs, Uruk-hai, Trolls, dragons, Wargs, werewolves and great spiders, with the Great Eagles standing on the other side as servants of Manwë. Tolkien gave most of them Elvish names: the Elves are Quendi, Men are Edain, a Dwarf is a Naug, Hobbits are Periannath, and Orcs are Yrch.
Ask a casual reader how many races live in Middle-earth and you will hear "Elves, Dwarves, Men and Hobbits." Ask someone who has read The Silmarillion and the answer takes an afternoon. Tolkien built a world in which every people has a creation story, a history across three Ages, a homeland, and, very often, a language. Some of those peoples are mortal, some are immortal, and some are not "peoples" at all but fallen spirits wearing bodies.
This guide walks through every one of them. Each section gives you the short version and links to a full article on that race, so you can use this page as a map. Along the way you will meet the Elvish name Tolkien gave each people, because the Elves named almost everything in Middle-earth, and those names are one of the best ways into the world.
How Tolkien Sorts the Peoples of Arda
Before going race by race, it helps to know the categories Tolkien himself used. They come from The Silmarillion, The Lord of the Rings and his letters.
The Children of Ilúvatar. Elves and Men are the two peoples made by Eru Ilúvatar, the One, and woven into the Music of the Ainur from the start. The Elves woke first and are called the Firstborn; Men woke later and are the Second-born. The difference that shapes every story between them is mortality: Elves are bound to the world until it ends, while Men die and leave it. Tolkien called that death the Gift of Men.
The adopted children. Dwarves were made by Aulë, one of the Valar, who could not wait for the Children to appear. Ilúvatar accepted them but made them sleep until after the Elves awoke (Silmarillion, chapter 2). Ents are a separate case: they were made at the prayer of Yavanna, Aulë's spouse, to guard the trees.
The spirits. The Ainur are the angelic beings who sang the world into being. The mightiest are the Valar, the rest are the Maiar. Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast and Sauron are all Maiar. So are the Balrogs, who followed Morgoth into evil.
The servants of the Enemy. Orcs, Trolls, dragons, Wargs, werewolves and the great spiders. A key rule runs through all of Tolkien's writing on these: evil cannot create life, only mock or twist it. That is why the origin of the Orcs bothered him for decades.
Hobbits. They fit inside the Children of Ilúvatar. The Prologue to The Lord of the Rings treats them as a branch of Men, small and long overlooked, but related.
Keep these groups in mind. They explain why an Elf can grieve for a thousand years, why a Dwarf might see an Elf as a rival, and why Gandalf can return from death.
Elves: The Firstborn
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Try It Free →The Elves are the oldest of the speaking peoples. They woke by the lake of Cuiviénen in the far east of Middle-earth, under the stars, before the Sun and Moon existed. The Vala Oromë found them and invited them west to Valinor, and that invitation split them for ever. Those who went became the Eldar; those who refused are the Avari, whom The Silmarillion calls the Unwilling. The Eldar themselves divided into the Vanyar, the Noldor and the Teleri, and part of the Teleri stayed in Beleriand to become the Sindar, the Grey-elves.
By the time of The Lord of the Rings the Elves are a fading people. Elrond holds Rivendell, Galadriel and Celeborn hold Lothlórien, Thranduil rules the Silvan Elves of Mirkwood, and Círdan keeps the Grey Havens, where the ships leave for the West.
The Elves also gave Middle-earth its two great invented languages, Quenya and Sindarin, which is why almost every place-name in the maps is Elvish.
Their own name for themselves is Quendi (singular Quendë), "those who speak." In Sindarin an Elf is an Edhel, plural Edhil.
Full article: Elves of Middle-earth. For the languages themselves, start with What Language Do Elves Speak in Lord of the Rings?
Dwarves: The Children of Aulë
Aulë the Smith made the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves in secret, in a hall under the mountains of Middle-earth. When Ilúvatar confronted him, Aulë offered to destroy his work; Ilúvatar spared it and gave the Dwarves true life, on condition that they slept until the Elves had woken. The eldest of the Seven was Durin, who woke at Mount Gundabad and founded Khazad-dûm, the realm the Elves later called Moria.
Dwarves are stubborn, secretive and proud of their crafts. They kept their own language, Khuzdul, hidden from outsiders, and even their real names, using names in the tongues of their neighbours instead. Their long feud and friendship with the Elves runs from the killing of King Thingol in The Silmarillion to Gimli and Legolas in The Lord of the Rings.
The Sindarin word for a Dwarf is Naug (plural Noeg), and Quenya has Casar. Both words appear in Tolkien's notes on the Dwarves.
Full article: Dwarves of Middle-earth. For their secret tongue: Khuzdul: The Dwarven Language.
Men: The Second-born
Men woke in the east at the first rising of the Sun. Some of them drifted west and allied with the Elves against Morgoth; the Elves called these the Edain, and rewarded them after the war with the island of Númenor. The Númenóreans rose to great power, fell to Sauron's lies, and were drowned in the Downfall. The survivors, led by Elendil, founded Gondor and Arnor, and their descendants are the Dúnedain, Aragorn's people.
Not all Men are Númenórean. The Rohirrim are horse-lords from the north who were given the land of Rohan. The Dunlendings, the Drúedain, the Easterlings and the Haradrim each have their own history, and many of them fought for Sauron.
In Quenya a Man is an Atan (plural Atani); in Sindarin an Adan (plural Edain). The Men of the West are the Dúnedain, from dûn, "west."
Full article: Men of Middle-earth. The language of Númenor has its own guide: Adûnaic, the Language of Númenor.
Hobbits: The Halflings
Hobbits are small, comfortable, and almost entirely ignored by the great powers until the end of the Third Age. The Prologue to The Lord of the Rings says they came from the upper Anduin and divided into three strains, the Harfoots, the Stoors and the Fallohides, before settling the Shire. They speak Westron, the Common Speech, and keep only a few words of an older tongue.
Yet it is Hobbits who carry the Ring, and Tolkien was explicit in his letters that this was the point: the great deeds turn on the small.
The Elves called them Periannath, "Halflings," singular Perian. That word appears in the praise at the Field of Cormallen, when the host of the West honours Frodo and Sam.
Full article: Hobbits of Middle-earth. Their everyday language: Westron, the Common Speech.
Orcs and Goblins
Orcs are the foot soldiers of every Dark Lord. "Goblin" and "Orc" are the same creature in Tolkien; The Hobbit uses the first word and The Lord of the Rings mostly the second. Their origin is the great unresolved question of the legendarium. The Silmarillion reports the belief of the wise that Morgoth made them from captured Elves, but Tolkien kept revising the idea in later papers.
Orcs speak debased forms of other languages, and Sauron tried to give them Black Speech as a common tongue.
The Sindarin word is Orch, plural Yrch. The Elves of Lothlórien use it in The Fellowship of the Ring.
Full article: Orcs and Goblins of Middle-earth. Their vocabulary: Black Speech Words and Orkish Vocabulary.
Uruk-hai
The Uruk-hai are a larger, stronger breed of Orc that does not fear the sun. The Lord of the Rings places them in both Mordor and Isengard, and Saruman's Uruks, bearing the White Hand, capture Merry and Pippin at Parth Galen. Uruk is a Black Speech word, not Elvish. The films add Lurtz, a character who does not exist in the book.
Full article: Uruk-hai Explained.
Trolls
Trolls are huge, strong, and in most cases turned to stone by daylight. Treebeard says Morgoth made them in mockery of Ents. The Hobbit gives us the three Stone-trolls, Bert, Tom and William, and Appendix F of The Lord of the Rings describes the Olog-hai, a race of Trolls bred by Sauron that could endure the sun.
Full article: Trolls of Middle-earth.
Ents and Huorns
The Ents are the shepherds of the trees, made at Yavanna's request. Treebeard, or Fangorn, is the oldest living thing that still walks under the Sun, and his slow, rolling language is one of Tolkien's most charming inventions. The Ents lost their Entwives long ago and have never found them. The Huorns are trees that have become half-awake and dangerous; they march on Isengard and destroy the Orcs at Helm's Deep.
In Sindarin an Ent is an Onod, and a Huorn keeps the Sindarin name huorn itself.
Full article: Ents and Huorns. For their speech: Entish: Treebeard's Language Explained.
Wizards (the Istari)
The Wizards look like old men, but they are Maiar, spirits sent by the Valar around the year 1000 of the Third Age to help the free peoples resist Sauron. They were forbidden to match his power with power, or to dominate the peoples they came to help. Five came: Saruman, Gandalf, Radagast and the two Blue Wizards, of whom almost nothing is known.
In Quenya a Wizard is an Istar, plural Istari, "those who know." Gandalf's Elvish name is Mithrandir, the Grey Pilgrim.
Full article: Wizards of Middle-earth: the Istari. On Gandalf's name: Mithrandir: Gandalf's Elvish Name.
The Nazgûl
The Nine Ringwraiths were once great kings of Men who took the Rings of Power Sauron gave them and slowly faded into his slaves. Their chief is the Witch-king of Angmar, who destroyed the northern kingdom of Arnor and was killed by Éowyn and Merry at the Pelennor Fields. Nazgûl is Black Speech, the same tongue as the inscription on the One Ring.
Full article: The Nazgûl Explained. For the Ring itself: The One Ring Inscription Explained.
Balrogs
Balrogs are Maiar of fire who joined Morgoth in the beginning. Gothmog, their lord, killed Fëanor; Glorfindel died fighting one at the fall of Gondolin. The Balrog of Moria, Durin's Bane, woke in the Third Age when the Dwarves delved too deep, and fell with Gandalf from the Bridge of Khazad-dûm.
The element raug in their name is Sindarin for "demon, powerful hostile and terrible creature."
Full article: Balrogs of Middle-earth.
Dragons
Morgoth bred the dragons in the First Age. Glaurung, the father of dragons, was wingless and fire-breathing; Ancalagon the Black was the greatest of the winged dragons and was killed by Eärendil. Smaug, in The Hobbit, is a much later descendant. Tolkien also mentions cold-drakes in the far north, which killed the Dwarf-king Dáin I.
The Sindarin lhûg means "serpent, dragon," and it survives in place-names of the First Age.
Full article: Dragons of Middle-earth.
The Great Eagles
The Eagles are servants of Manwë, King of the Valar. Thorondor, their lord in the First Age, scarred Morgoth's face and carried Beren and Lúthien from Angband. In the Third Age Gwaihir rescues Gandalf twice and, with his brother Landroval, carries Frodo and Sam from Mount Doom.
The Sindarin thoron means "eagle," and Thorondor is the King of Eagles.
Full article: Great Eagles of Middle-earth.
Wargs and Wolves
Wargs are evil wolves that ally with Orcs in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Behind them stands an older horror: the werewolves of Sauron in the First Age, led by Draugluin, and Carcharoth, the wolf that bit off Beren's hand.
The Sindarin draug means "wolf" and gaur means "werewolf."
Full article: Wargs and Wolves of Middle-earth.
Giant Spiders
Ungoliant, a primeval spirit in spider form, helped Morgoth destroy the Two Trees of Valinor. Shelob is her last child in the Third Age, living in the pass of Cirith Ungol, and the spiders of Mirkwood in The Hobbit are lesser descendants.
The Sindarin ungol means "spider," which is why the pass is called Cirith Ungol.
Full article: Giant Spiders of Middle-earth.
Beornings and Other Peoples
A few peoples do not get a separate article here. The Beornings are the followers of Beorn, the skin-changer of The Hobbit who can take the shape of a great black bear; by the time of The Lord of the Rings they guard the passes of the upper Anduin. They are counted among Men and are covered in the article on Men.
Tolkien also mentions creatures he never fully explains: the Watcher in the Water outside Moria, the "nameless things" that gnaw under the world, the Barrow-wights sent from Angmar, and Old Man Willow. Tom Bombadil, the oldest being in the Shire's neighbourhood, belongs to no race at all, and Tolkien refused to say what he was.
The Races in Elvish
Tolkien wrote most of the names for the peoples of Middle-earth in Quenya and Sindarin. Here are the attested words, with the meanings recorded in Tolkien's own papers.
| People | Quenya | Sindarin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elves | Quendë, pl. Quendi | Edhel, pl. Edhil | "Those who speak"; Elf |
| Men | Atan, pl. Atani | Adan, pl. Edain | Man, mortal human |
| Men of the West | - | Dúnedain | from dûn, west |
| Dwarves | Casar | Naug, pl. Noeg | Dwarf |
| Hobbits | Perian | Perian, pl. Periannath | Halfling |
| Orcs | - | Orch, pl. Yrch | Orc |
| Ents | - | Onod | Ent |
| Wizards | Istar, pl. Istari | - | One who knows |
| Valar | Vala, pl. Valar | - | Power, angelic being |
| Eagles | - | Thoron | Eagle |
| Wolves | - | Draug | Wolf |
| Spiders | - | Ungol | Spider |
A dash means the word is not attested in that language in the sources we use, not that it is impossible. Where Tolkien gives no Elvish name for a people, as with the Uruk-hai or the Olog-hai, we say so rather than inventing one.
A few pronunciation tips: Quendi is KWEN-dee, Edain is EH-dine, Periannath is peh-ree-AN-nath, and Yrch has the Sindarin "ch" of German Bach, never the English "ch" of church. You can paste any of these into our Elvish translator to see them in context, or see them written in Tengwar with the Tengwar Scribe.
Film Versus Book: A Quick Warning
Peter Jackson's films change some of these peoples. The Uruk-hai are born from mud pits in the film, a scene with no source in the book. Lurtz and the Orc commander Azog's role in The Hobbit trilogy are film creations or expansions. The Elves at Helm's Deep, led by Haldir, are film-only; in the book no Elves fight there except Legolas. The films are wonderful, but when a detail matters, the books are the canon. Each spoke article in this series marks the film-only material so you can tell the two apart.
People Also Ask
What is the oldest race in Middle-earth? Among the speaking peoples, the Elves. Treebeard claims to be the oldest living thing still walking under the Sun, and the Ainur, including the Wizards and Balrogs, are older than the world itself.
Are Hobbits a type of Men? The Prologue to The Lord of the Rings says Hobbits are relatives of Men, closer to them than to Elves or Dwarves, though their exact origin was already forgotten.
Which race is strongest in Middle-earth? Of the mortal races, Tolkien never ranks them. Of all beings, the Valar are the most powerful, followed by the Maiar, which is why a Balrog could kill a great Elf-lord.
Did Tolkien invent a language for every race? Not every one. He wrote full grammars and large vocabularies for Quenya and Sindarin, outlines of Khuzdul, Adûnaic and Black Speech, a few words of Entish, and almost nothing for Orkish beyond Black Speech.
Start Learning the Language of the Elves
Every section above ended with a name in Elvish, because the Elves named nearly everything in Middle-earth. If you want to read those names rather than just recognise them, you can learn the languages Tolkien wrote for them.
Learn Elvish free. Tengwar's course starts with ten free lessons in Quenya and Sindarin, with real Tolkien vocabulary and audio for every word. Start the free Elvish lessons, or see your own name in Elvish script with the Tengwar name tool.
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People Also Ask
How many races are there in Middle-earth?
Tolkien never gives a fixed number. The free peoples named in The Lord of the Rings are Elves, Dwarves, Ents, Men and Hobbits, and Treebeard's old list of living creatures adds animals and birds. Beyond those stand the spirits (the Valar and Maiar, including the Wizards and the Balrogs) and the creatures bred or corrupted by the Enemy: Orcs, Uruk-hai, Trolls, dragons, Wargs and the great spiders.
What are the main races in The Lord of the Rings?
The Fellowship itself shows the main ones: Elves (Legolas), Dwarves (Gimli), Men (Aragorn and Boromir), Hobbits (Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin) and a Wizard (Gandalf), who is not a mortal race at all but a Maia, an angelic spirit in human form.
Who are the Children of Ilúvatar?
Elves and Men. In The Silmarillion they are the two peoples made by Ilúvatar himself, which is why the Elves call Men the Second-born. Dwarves were made by the Vala Aulë and only later adopted by Ilúvatar, and Hobbits are described in the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings as a branch of Men.
Do the races of Middle-earth have Elvish names?
Most do. The Elves called themselves Quendi, Men are Atani in Quenya and Edain in Sindarin, a Dwarf is a Naug in Sindarin, Hobbits are Periannath, Orcs are Yrch, an Ent is an Onod, and a Wizard is an Istar. Each name below comes from Tolkien's own writings.
Are Orcs a race or corrupted Elves?
Tolkien never settled it. The Silmarillion says the wise of Eressëa held that Orcs came from captured Elves, while his later notes in The History of Middle-earth try out other origins, including corrupted Men and beasts given a semblance of reason. What is firm is that the Enemy could not make life of his own, only twist what already existed.
