New Zealand served as the main filming location for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
Director Peter Jackson, who is from New Zealand, filmed the production across locations on both of the country’s main islands. Mountains, forests, farmland, rivers, and volcanic landscapes supplied settings for many parts of Middle-earth, while sets and studio facilities supported scenes requiring extensive construction or visual effects.
The country’s varied geography helped the films distinguish locations such as the Shire, Isengard, Rohan, and Mordor. Some locations later became tourism destinations associated with the trilogy, including Hobbiton near Matamata, where a permanent movie set remains open to visitors.
New Zealand was not literally the only place involved in every production process: visual-effects work, post-production, and other filmmaking tasks involved international companies and facilities. Nevertheless, New Zealand is the canonical answer for the trilogy’s principal filming country.