Rings of Power filming locations reveal where was Rings of Power filmed, from New Zealand’s wild beauty to Tenerife’s desert magic.

By 2026, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has settled into its role as Amazon Prime Video's great big, beautifully expensive water-cooler experiment—a show designed to be discussed by the office kettle rather than endured in a gore-soaked stupor. Set in the Second Age of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, the series stitches together material from The Lord of the Rings appendices and the occasional shiny thread from The Silmarillion. Its international cast is matched only by an international filming schedule that makes a United Nations summit look like a neighborhood potluck.

Season 1, which premiered September 1, 2022, turned New Zealand into a familiar Middle-earth. Peter Jackson's trilogies had already made the country synonymous with sweeping majesty, so the show wisely borrowed that sense of recognition. Filming ran from February 2020 to August 2021, meaning cast and crew bonded over COVID-19 like passengers on a very long, very scenic lifeboat. Sophia Nomvete, who plays Disa, said New Zealand helped her in a way she never imagined a country could—and yes, both Rings of Power and her child were born there. Interior scenes were shot at Auckland Film Studios, while Morfydd Clark (Galadriel) and Charlie Vickers (Sauron) spent what felt like two months in a water tank for the season 1 finale and episode 2 raft scene. That is dedication, or possibly a very strange aquatic therapy.

The North Island's Denize Bluffs in Mangaotaki Valley provided Trollshaw Forest vibes and the Harfoot community, proving that a gorgeous New Zealand tourist hotspot can double as a fantasy neighborhood. Galadriel and Elendil rode horses along a Coromandel Peninsula beach next to the Hauraki Gulf, and other Númenor scenes were shot around that stunning gulf, with Isildur greeting Eärien at Cathedral Cove. The result is a Middle-earth that feels like a postcard someone spilled magic on.

Season 2 expanded the map eastward into Rhûn, with filming in Tenerife, particularly Teide National Park. In March 2022, the show used the Canary Island off Spain to create Tom Bombadil's home. Showrunner Patrick McKay explained that his 'summer cottage' should be an oasis of life in the middle of the desert—dotted with orange and lemon trees, and busy with goats, lambs, and bees. San Juan de la Rambla hosted cast and crew for five weeks while they filmed Rhûn's desert landscapes in the arid plains and hills of Teide National Park. Some Númenor scenes may also have been shot there, judging by promotional material. Míriel actress Cynthia Addai-Robinson said they had a couple of stories shot on the island, and on some favorite days she was looking at the ocean and horizon, feeling what Mother Earth was giving—calling her the best set designer. That is a compliment so grand it probably made the actual set designers briefly consider a career in geology.

The second season then moved to the UK, filming between Bray Studios and Bovingdon Airfield on Chesham Road in Hertfordshire, neighboring London. Hertfordshire is already home to big film studios such as Elstree. Filming occurred between October 2022 and June 2023, bumping into the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike. Despite that obstacle, the show filmed Sauron's War Against the Elves, its largest-scale battle yet. Amazon recently acquired Bray Studios for its priority purposes going forward, making it Amazon's first UK studio after buying its own in the US. Battles, forests, and fantasy monsters awaited, with Ents, Barrow-wights, and Shelob joining the proceedings. Bray Studios and Bovingdon Airfield undoubtedly created some of the scarier scenes, with season 2 setting a much darker tone.

Production Era	Primary Locations	Notable Middle-earth Spots
Season 1	New Zealand	Denize Bluffs, Coromandel Peninsula, Cathedral Cove, Auckland Film Studios
Season 2 (Rhûn)	Tenerife, Spain	Teide National Park, San Juan de la Rambla
Season 2 (UK)	Hertfordshire, England	Bray Studios, Bovingdon Airfield

One could say the production strategy is like a cartographer trying to map a dream while riding a unicycle: ambitious, wobbly, and occasionally brilliant. Or like a sommelier pairing wine with a volcanic eruption: bold, strange, and somehow exactly what the occasion demanded. The show's scale has only grown with its second season, and that is thanks in no small part to its diverse global studios. One week into season 2, it was number one most-watched on Amazon Prime. By 2026, that water-cooler ambition remains the point: a spectacle designed for break-room debates, not just bloodstained shock value.

In the end, The Rings of Power is a bit like a squirrel attempting to file taxes for an entire forest: the paperwork is enormous, the stakes are absurd, and yet somehow it keeps finding acorns. Its global filming schedule has given Tolkien's Second Age a passport full of stamps, from New Zealand's misty bluffs to Tenerife's desert oases to Hertfordshire's studio lots. Whether viewers come for Sauron, the Harfoots, or the sheer joy of spotting a beach they once visited, the show remains a sprawling, imperfect, undeniably ambitious trip through Middle-earth. And in 2026, that is still worth talking about by the water cooler—assuming the water cooler has not been replaced by a smart fridge with opinions.