Tolkien Gateway

The Tolkien Gateway is a fan wiki that documents J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth. It is respected and used by scholars. In 2023, it won a Tolkien Society Award. It has been described as "essential"^[3] in A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien.

Tolkien Gateway

Detail of Tolkien Gateway's front page, showing its organisation and coverage of topics such as books, characters, games, images, and music
Type of site	Fan wiki Online encyclopedia
Available in	English
Country of origin	United States
URL	tolkiengateway.net tolkien.wiki
Advertising	No
Commercial	No
Registration	Optional
Launched	January 1, 2003; 22 years ago (2003-01-01)[1]
Current status	Active
Content license	CC BY-SA 4.0[2]

Website

Coverage

The Tolkien Gateway is a fan wiki that documents all the characters, places, objects, and events in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth, with citations to Tolkien's texts. It provides some coverage of related non-Tolkien items such as films, actors, games, music, images, and scholarly books.^[4] It has interviewed Tolkien scholars such as John D. Rateliff.^[5] It is the largest Tolkien-related wiki in the world.^[6]

Scholarly recognition

The site is described in Stuart D. Lee's 2014 scholarly handbook A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien as "the main source to start a review of the plethora of Tolkien-based online materials."^[7] It is referenced in scholarly works such as VII,^[8] Journal of Tolkien Research,^[9] and Social Science Computer Review.^[10]

Awards and distinctions

In 2023, Tolkien Gateway won a Tolkien Society Award for online content.^[11]

Tolkien Gateway is one of four websites described as "essential"^[3] in A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien.^[a][3]

Notes

1. The four websites are the Tolkien Gateway, TheOneRing.net, the Tolkien Library (which is mainly a book site, but also runs articles, reviews, and news^[12]), and The Tolkien Society (which is an educational charity and literary society).^[3][7]