Northrend Northrend is the northern , icy continent of the world of Azeroth , and the source of the evil Scourge . It is also the home of Icecrown Citadel , the seat of the malevolent Lich King . The continent is featured in the " World of Warcraft " expansion , " " . History . Ancient history . Often called " the roof of the world " and sometimes " the crown of Azeroth " , Northrend is a frozen wasteland that lies far to the north . As with the other continents , it was once part of the original Kalimdor landmass that was broken apart during the Sundering . The land that became Northrend drifted far from Azeroth ' s temperate zone , which killed off a large portion of the remaining wildlife . A particularly hardy breed of insectoid - humanoids , the Aqir , had survived the destruction . After thousands of years of evolution , the Aqir became the Nerubian s : a sinister , shadowy race of spider - men . While a few humans and trolls eked out survival in small encampments , their presence was no match for the Nerubian Empire . Northrend also contains The Dragonblight : an enormous ice plain covered with the bones of thousands of dragon s . As they near death , the great beasts fly to Northrend so that they may die with their ancestors . The blue dragonflight , led by the enigmatic Malygos , watches over the Dragonblight to ensure that the remains are undisturbed . The blue dragons were successful in their task for many thousands of years , until the coming of the Lich King … The coming of the Lich King . After Ner ' zhul the shaman was captured and tortured by Kil ' jaeden , the demonlord transformed the ancient Orc into a dark being of immense power . Now called the Lich King , Ner ' zhul was imprisoned within a block of ice and cast back into Azeroth . Ner ' zhul ' s prison landed at the base of the mighty Icecrown Glacier , by far the largest glacier in Azeroth . From this secret location , the Lich King used his telepathic powers to enslave many of the native life forms , including Ice Trolls and Wendigo . With these servants , Ner ' zhul created a small army for himself . The Nerubians , aware of the Lich King ' s threat to themselves and the world at large , launched an attack on Ner ' zhul ' s forces . Thus began the War of the Spider . After ten long years of war , the nerubians were eventually defeated by the Lich King ' s endless supply of undead warriors and aid from the Legion ' s nathrezim . Most of the Nerubians were slain and reanimated as soldiers in the Undead army , while those who remained alive continued a guerrilla war against the lord of the dead . Satisfied that Northrend was his , Ner ' zhul began consolidating his forces for the corruption of Lordaeron . To this end , the Scourge stole many sets of remains from the Dragonblight , which were then reborn as lethal Frost Wyrm s . By the end of the Third War , Northrend had seen the corruption of Prince Arthas , who had followed the nathrezim Mal ' Ganis to the cold north in an attempt to stop the Scourge , as well as an invasion attempt by Illidan ' s Naga and blood elf forces , who had hoped to destroy Icecrown and the Lich King . This invasion was thwarted by Arthas and Anub ' arak however , and Ner ' zhul successfully merged with Arthas to free the Lich King from the Frozen Throne . The Lich King now holds complete domination over Northrend , and the living dare not tread on the frozen continent — especially after a disastrous invasion attempt of the Scarlet Crusade which ended in the expeditionary force being decimated . Even though the Crusaders reached as far as Icecrown Glacier , the heavy losses suffered from this defeat marked an end to the counter offensive and forced the Crusade into a defensive stance , consolidating their powers in the Plaguelands . Scattered remains of Barean Westwind ' s fleet are likely to be found amongst the Frozen Coast , the skeletal shipwrecks a warning to any vessel navigating too close to the shores of Northrend . World of Warcraft : Wrath of the Lich King . Northrend is the setting of . In terms of size , the Northrend expansion is similar in scope to the " Burning Crusade " expansion : Northrend has been shown to contain ten zone - like areas , compared with the seven zones of Outland plus four zones of draenei and blood elf starting areas featured in " Burning Crusade " . As for the sizes of the zones themselves , a few ( especially the Borean Tundra and Dragonblight ) are huge , making them similar to the larger - than - average zones in Outland . At the same time , however , Northrend also include a few rather small zones ( namely Sholazar Basin and Wintergrasp ) . Northrend is bigger than Outland by a couple of zones , and some of the zones themselves are larger than Outland ' s largest zones . Unlike Outland , there is no minimum - level requirement to enter Northrend . Cataclysm . Questions have been raised about the continuity of the Wrath of the Lich King storyline following the Cataclysm , and blue - poster Bornakk has addressed this issue : You have to consider the changes with some form of leniency , while technically you could say that if the story progresses then we need to remove a bunch of the content from Outland and Northrend as those are over - but for numerous reasons , you can probably see why that would be a bad idea . This is the same type of thing that happens by just having a persistent world , just because one quest was completed where something was killed doesn ' t mean it vanishes from your sight forever . While a level 80 doesn ' t need to return to the locations of Outland and Northrend and can focus on the new stories - a new character hasn ' t helped defeat the villains in those areas so they still need to answer the call and fight them off ( or in the terms people are tossing around , they need to level ) . Geography . Northrend is mostly an ice and snow covered zone , but some regions , either by a peculiarity of location are somewhat temperate ( Grizzly Hills primarily , but Crystalsong Forest and parts of Howling Fjord are milder ) . The strange exception is Sholazar Basin which seems similar to Un ' Goro Crater in Kalimdor , if not quite as swampy . Zones . " Wrath of the Lich King " zones and recommended levels :