Kingdom of Heaven: Balian's Holy Land and Its Sets

The film opens in Balian's home village, where he is a blacksmith haunted by his wife's suicide. Those scenes were shot at Loarre, in the Spanish Pyrenees. Here Balian kills his half-brother, the greedy and immoral town priest, and turns down Godfrey's request to come to the Holy Land. The next day he joins his father's group anyway. The castle is genuinely old: one of the oldest in Spain, where King Sancho Ramírez installed a community of Augustinian canons in 1073. On screen it stands in for medieval France.

Visitor guidance: The castle stands near the village of Loarre in Huesca province.

In the film's Messina, Balian has a contentious encounter with Guy de Lusignan. Then, a night before the departure, his father Godfrey knights him, anoints him Baron of Ibelin and orders him to protect the helpless before dying of his arrow wound. The Messina exteriors were shot on the ramparts of Essaouira, a town known as Mogador until the 1960s. Its fortified harbour, the skala, has served as a filming location again since.

Location precision: The sources say only 'the ramparts of Essaouira'; the pin marks the fortified harbour.

Reaching Jerusalem after the shipwreck and a desert fight, Balian frees the slave who guided him, and is told his mercy will earn the respect of the Saracens. The wide shots of Jerusalem were filmed at Aït Benhaddou, with a matte-painting background added. The ksar is a fortified village on the old caravan route between the Sahara and Marrakesh, a UNESCO site since 1987. None of its current buildings is believed older than the 17th century, so it is a much later stand-in for the twelfth-century city.

Visitor guidance: A World Heritage ksar on the former caravan route between the Sahara and Marrakesh.

In Jerusalem Balian meets the city's leaders: the leper King Baldwin IV, and Tiberias, the Marshal of Jerusalem. Baldwin's palace was shot in Seville, at the Alcázar and the Casa de Pilatos. The Casa is an Andalusian palace, Italian Renaissance in style with Mudéjar elements, and still the permanent residence of the Dukes of Medinaceli. It holds around 150 azulejo tile designs made in the 1530s. The pin marks the Casa de Pilatos.

Visitor guidance: In central Seville; it remains the Dukes of Medinaceli's residence.

In the film, Guy and the cruel Raynald of Châtillon attack Saracen caravans, provoking Saladin to march on Raynald's castle. Balian defends the castle and nearby villagers at the king's request, despite being outnumbered. History is different: Raynald gained Kerak in 1176 by marrying Stephanie of Milly, and Saladin besieged it in 1183 in response to Raynald's attacks. Kerak, in Jordan, is one of the largest castles in the Levant and plays a large role in the film.

Despite Balian's advice to stay near Jerusalem's water sources, Guy marches to war, and the exhausted Crusaders are overwhelmed in a desert battle. Saladin captures Guy and beheads Raynald. The real Battle of Hattin was fought on 4 July 1187, and Saladin's troops set fire to the dry grass, making the Crusaders' throats even drier. The film downplays Raynald's responsibility for the defeat, which makes Guy more of an autonomous villain.

Location precision: The Horns, a twin-peaked extinct volcano, are believed to be the battle site; the pin marks the peaks, not a battle line.

In the film, Saladin parleys with Balian after a devastating three-day siege, and Balian surrenders Jerusalem. History ran longer: Saladin arrived outside the city on 20 September 1187, camped before the Tower of David and the Damascus Gate, and the Crusaders surrendered on 2 October. The city held fewer than fourteen knights, so Balian created sixty more. The citadel standing today dates to the Mamluk and Ottoman periods, long after the siege.

Location precision: The siege ran along the city walls; the pin marks the Tower of David, near where Saladin's army first came to rest.

The film's siege of Jerusalem was shot near Ouarzazate, in Morocco, where Scott had earlier filmed Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. It took five months to build the set, with walls 15 metres high, and the shoot used about 1,800 extras. On screen it ends with Saladin offering safe conduct to all Christians in exchange for the city. Atlas Studios, 5 kilometres west of the town, kept the interiors and still holds sets from various films.

Location precision: The siege was shot 'near Ouarzazate and the Atlas studios'; the pin marks the studio itself.

Visitor guidance: The studio runs guided tours of the sets.