Esgaroth

Esgaroth, or Lake-town, is a fictional community of Men upon the Long Lake that appears in the 1937 novel The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. Constructed entirely of wood and standing upon wooden pillars sunk into the lake-bed, the town is south of the Lonely Mountain and east of Mirkwood. The town's prosperity is apparently built upon trade between the Men who inhabit it, and the Elves and the Dwarves of northern Middle-earth. The chief mode of transport of the people of Esgaroth is stated to be their boats. At the time in which The Hobbit is set, Esgaroth appears to be a city-state, and a republic with no king (the only real republic shown in Middle-earth). The Master of Lake-town was said in-universe to be elected from among the "old and wise"; scholars have noted that all the same, he was trapped by his greed. Tolkien modelled the town closely on the real Neolithic pile dwellings that were discovered near the Alps in the 19th century.