What is the name of the plantation in Gone with the Wind? The plantation is called Tara. It is the fictional Georgia home of Scarlett O’Hara and the emotional center of Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel.
In the story, Tara lies near Jonesboro in Clayton County, roughly 20 miles south of Atlanta. Gerald O’Hara, an Irish immigrant, acquires the land after winning it in a poker game and names it after the Hill of Tara, an ancient ceremonial site associated with Ireland’s high kings. The property becomes a successful cotton plantation before the Civil War.
Tara is more than a setting: Scarlett repeatedly treats it as a source of identity, endurance, and security. Readers sometimes confuse Tara with Twelve Oaks, the neighboring plantation owned by the Wilkes family. Monticello, meanwhile, was Thomas Jefferson’s real Virginia estate and is unrelated to the novel’s fictional Georgia plantation. Mitchell reportedly drew inspiration for Tara from Rural Home, a plantation connected to her family history.