<p>In light of numerous racist and far-right lone-actor attacks over the past years, a better understanding of their ideological and historical-structural embeddedness within society is highly relevant. To contribute to this endeavour, this paper analyses one largely overlooked issue in the study of racist lone-actor violence: the places where violence is located. Based on the case of the 2020 attack in Hanau, Germany, it investigates how racisms are expressed in the social construction of the sites of the attack. Through a thematic analysis of newspaper articles published before the attack, it provides a historical contextualisation of the racialisation of space with regard to two locations of the mass shooting. Based on this analysis, I argue that the places of the Hanau attack serve as so-called racial metonyms, through which racialised prejudices are communicated while avoiding overt racist language and obscuring histories of structural discrimination. Racist perpetrators such as the shooter in Hanau mobilise these prejudices in their racially motivated, place-based selection of victims.</p>