What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s birthplace?

J.R.R. Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, in the Orange Free State, on 3 January 1892.

At the time of Tolkien’s birth, Bloemfontein was the capital of the Orange Free State, an independent Boer republic in southern Africa. His father, Arthur Reuel Tolkien, worked there as a bank manager, while his mother, Mabel, had joined him after their marriage in England.

Tolkien lived in Bloemfontein only briefly. After his father died in 1896, Mabel returned to England with Tolkien and his younger brother, Hilary. The family settled first in Birmingham and later in the village of Sarehole, whose rural surroundings influenced some of Tolkien’s feelings about landscape and industrial change.

Some accounts describe Tolkien simply as English because he was raised and educated in England. That description reflects his cultural identity, but his documented birthplace was Bloemfontein, not an English city.