Location from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The White City — Gondor's seven-tiered capital carved into a mountainside, its white walls gleaming in defiance of the darkness gathering in Mordor across the river.
Minas Tirith is magnificent and haunted. Each of its seven levels is a city unto itself, connected by switchback roads and a tunnel bored through the keel of rock at each wall. The architecture is Númenórean at its finest — white stone fitted so precisely you cannot slip a knife between the blocks, built by men who expected their work to outlast mountains. And it has. But the upper levels are half-empty now, their houses shuttered, their fountains dry. The city was built for a population it no longer has. The lower levels still bustle — soldiers, merchants, healers, refugees streaming in from Ithilien and the outlands. The smell of bread and iron rises from the first circle. By the fourth level the air is cleaner, the streets quieter. The sixth level holds the Houses of Healing, where the scent of athelas lingers. The seventh level — the Citadel — is cold stone and ceremony, the dead White Tree standing like a reproach in the fountain court, and Denethor brooding in the Tower. The view from the walls is staggering: Pelennor Fields spread below, the Anduin gleaming, and beyond it the mountains of Mordor smoking on the horizon.
Seven concentric levels of white stone walls rising up the slope of Mount Mindolluin, each level set back from the one below, creating a massive half-cone shape. The Tower of Ecthelion — the White Tower — crowning the Citadel at the seventh level, its pinnacle catching the sun like a pearl and silver spike. A ship-prow of rock dividing the city's face. The Great Gate of black iron and steel at the base. The dead White Tree standing in the Court of the Fountain before the Tower.
Also known as: Minas Tirith, the White City, City of Kings, Mundburg, Tower of Guard