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Mordor - Barad-dûr

... And into this Tower he poured his cruelty, his malice...

Thither, eastwards, unwilling Frodo's eye was drawn.
It passed the ruined bridges of Osgiliath,
the grinning gates of Minas Morgul and the haunted Mountains,
and it looked upon Gorgoroth, the valley of terror
in the Land of Mordor.
Darkness lay there under the Sun.
Fire glowed amid the smoke.
Mount Doom was burning, and a great reek rising.

Then at last his gaze was held: wall upon wall,
battlement upon battlement, black, immeasurably strong,
mountain of iron, gate of steel,
tower of adamant, he saw it:
Barad-dûr, Fortress of Sauron.
All hope left him.
(from: The Fellowship of the Ring, page 521)

Sam did not know it, but he was looking at Sauron's Road
from Barad-dûr to the Sammath Naur, the Chambers of Fire.
Out from the Dark Tower's huge western gate
it came over a deep abyss by a vast bridge of iron,
and then passing into the plain
it ran for a league between two smoking chasms...
(from: The Return of the King, page 264)

A brief vision he had of swirling cloud,
and in the midst of it towers and battlements, tall as hills,
founded upon a mighty mountain-throne above immeasurable pits;
great courts and dungeons, eyeless prisons sheer as cliffs,
and gaping gates of steel and adamant:
and then all passed.
(from: The Return of the King, page 270-1)

Far off the shadows of Sauron hung;
but torn by some gust of wind out of the world,
or else moved by some great disquiet within,
the mantling clouds swirled, and for a moment drew aside;
and then he saw, rising black,
blacker and darker than the vast shades amid which it stood,
the cruel pinnacles and iron crown
of the topmost tower of Barad-dûr.
(from: The Return of the King, page 264-5)

Saruman: "The world is changing.
Who now has the strength to stand
against the armies of Isengard and Mordor?
To stand against the might of Sauron and Saruman...
... and the union of the two towers?
Together, my Lord Sauron
we shall rule this Middle-earth!"

"And into this Tower he poured his cruelty, his malice...
and his will to dominate all life...

Barad-dûr - meaning "Dark Tower" in Sindarin - was built
in the Second Age by Sauron when he first came to Mordor.
The building took six hundred years to complete.
It was the greatest fortress Middle-earth had seen
since the Fall of Angband, and much of Sauron's power went into it.

At the end of the Second Age,
Barad-dûr was besieged for seven years
by the Last Alliance of Elves and Men.
In S.A, 3441, the Tower was taken and destroyed by the forces
of Elendil and Gil-galad, who both perished in siege.
Though the fortress was razed, its foundations,
laid with the power of the Ring, could not be removed.

For much of the Third Age, Sauron's stronghold was not in Mordor,
which was ruled in his stead by the Nazgûl.
In T.A. 2941, the White Council drove Sauron from his fortress
of Dol Guldur in Mirkwood and he withdrew to Mordor once again.
There, he began the rebuilding of the Dark Tower.
(from Wikipedia & Encyclopedia of Arda)

According to the filmmakers of Peter Jackson
the construction was still under way at the time
when Gollum was captured in Mordor by Sauron's Orcs
and put to the rack in the deep dungeons
of the fortress (around T.A. 3010).

"SHIRE!... BAGGINS!"

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Eriador

Rivendell

The Mines of Moria:

Mirkwood

The Anduin

Rohan

Morgul Vale:

Mordor:

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Mordor - Barad-dûr