Gorgoroth was a high desolate plain in north-western Mordor enclosed by the Morgai and the Ephel Dúath in the west, the Ephel Dúath and the Ered Lithui in the north, by a mountain arm that branched off from the Ephel Dúath in the south and by a mountain arm that branched off from the Ered Lithui in the south-east.
The only known passages into the plateau through these mountain walls were the Isenmouthe (from the valley of Udûn in the south of the Morannon), the rift in the Morgai in the east of the Pass of Cirith Ungol and the east of the Morgul Pass and the gap between the mountain arm that branched off from the Ephel Dúath to the east and the mountain spur that branched off from the Ered Litui to the south-west.
In this dreary wasteland fumes issued from fissures in the ground and smoke curled and settled in hollows. Centred in the desolation some forty miles east of the Ephel Duath rose Mount Doom. It and Barad-dûr, situated on a mountain spur of the Ered Lithui, dominated the landscape of the plateau.