The Shire is the fictional land where J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit begins. It is a peaceful region of northwestern Middle-earth inhabited mainly by Hobbits, including Bilbo Baggins.
Bilbo lives in Bag End, a comfortable Hobbit-hole in Hobbiton. The unexpected arrival of Gandalf and thirteen Dwarves changes his quiet life and starts the quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain from Smaug. The contrast between the Shire and the dangerous lands beyond it is one of the novel’s defining patterns.
The Shire also provides the opening and closing setting for The Lord of the Rings. Frodo Baggins inherits Bilbo’s home and begins his own journey from there, while the story ends with the Hobbits returning to a Shire damaged by outsiders and then restoring it.
The Shire is not the whole of Middle-earth and is not synonymous with Hobbit culture everywhere. Other Hobbits lived in nearby regions, including Buckland and the Marish, but the Shire remains the best-known Hobbit homeland.