Geography of Middle-earth

The cartographer Karen Wynn Fonstad has created detailed thematic maps for Tolkien's major Middle-earth books, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.

[1] Ossë, on behalf of the Valar, then raised the island continent of Númenor as a gift to the now homeless Men of Beleriand, thenceforth called Númenóreans.

Tolkien then equated Arda, consisting of both Middle-earth's planet and the heavenly Aman, with the Solar System, the Sun and Moon being celestial objects in their own right, no longer orbiting the Earth.

The cataclysm divided Ered Luin and Lindon by the newly created Gulf of Lune; the northern part was Forlindon, the southern Harlindon.

[T 3][5] The Misty Mountains were thrown up by the Dark Lord Melkor in the First Age to impede Oromë, one of the Valar, who often rode across Middle-earth hunting.

The River Anduin passes the hills of Emyn Muil and the enormous rock statues of the Argonath and flows through the dangerous rapids of Sarn Gebir and over the Falls of Rauros into Gondor.

In the angle between the two ranges is the volcanic Plateau of Gorgoroth, with the tall volcano of Orodruin or Mount Doom, where the Dark Lord Sauron forged the One Ring.

[15] Michael Brisbois, also in Tolkien Studies, describes the atlas as "authorized",[16] while the cartographers Ina Habermann and Nikolaus Kuhn take Fonstad's maps as defining Middle-earth's geography.

Danielson writes that in addition, Fonstad created "the most comprehensive set" of thematic maps of Middle-earth, presenting geographic data including political boundaries, climate, population density, and the routes of characters and armies.

[13] At the end of the Third Age, much of the northwest of Middle-earth is wild, with traces here and there of ruined cities and fortresses from earlier civilisations among the mountains, rivers, forests, hills, plains and marshes.

[22] Forgotten by most of the rest of the world is the Shire, a small region in the northwest of Middle-earth inhabited by hobbits amidst the abandoned lands of Eriador.

Tolkien Encyclopedia — constructed a "fully expressed moral geography",[11] from the hobbits' home in the Northwest, evil in the East, and "imperial sophistication and decadence" in the South.

[24] Other scholars such as Walter Scheps and Isabel G. MacCaffrey have noted Middle-earth's "spatial cum moral dimensions",[25][26] though not identically with Magoun's interpretation.

That places the Shire and the elves' Grey Havens in the Northwest as certainly good, and Mordor in the Southeast as certainly Evil; Gondor in the Southwest is in their view morally ambivalent, matching the characters of both Boromir and Denethor.

They observe further that the Shire's four quadrants or "Farthings" serve as a "microcosm" of the moral geography of Middle-earth as a whole: thus, the evil Black Riders appear first in the Eastfarthing, while the once good but corrupted Saruman's men arrive in the Southfarthing.

[25] J. K. Newman compares the adventurous quest to Mordor to "the perpetual temptation felt in the West 'to hold the gorgeous East in fee'" (citing Wordsworth on Venice), in a tradition which he traces back to Herodotus and to the myth of the Golden Fleece.

[T 10] About the origins of his storytelling and the place of cartography within it, Tolkien stated in a letter:[33] I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit (generally with meticulous care for distances).

[T 11]Writing in Mythlore, Jefferson P. Swycaffer suggested that the political and strategic situations of Gondor and Mordor in the Siege of Gondor were "analogous to Constantinople facing the boxshape of Asia Minor"; that "Dol Amroth makes a fine Venice"; that the Rohirrim and their grasslands are comparable to "Hungary of the Magyars, who were weak allies of Byzantine Constantinople"; and that the Corsairs of Umbar resembled the Barbary pirates who served Mehmed the Conqueror.

[37] The linguist David Salo writes that Gondor recalls "a kind of decaying Byzantium"; its piratical enemy Umbar like the seagoing Carthage; the Southrons (of Harad) "Arab-like"; and the Easterlings "suggesting Sarmatians, Huns and Avars".

[38] The geologist Alex Acks, writing on Tor.com, outlines mismatches between Tolkien's maps and the processes of plate tectonics which shape the Earth's continents and mountain ranges.

Infographic of the change of cosmology from flat-world to round-world
The Downfall of Númenor and the Changing of the World. In the First Age , the Elves lived in Beleriand . In the First and Second Ages , Valinor was across the sea, Belegaer, from Middle-earth, with Númenor in between for most of the Second Age. At the end of the Second Age, Númenor was destroyed and Valinor removed from Arda . [ 2 ] The outlines of the continents are purely schematic.
Sketch map of Middle-earth during the Third Age The Shire Old Forest Bree Rivendell Erebor Esgaroth Moria Isengard Mirkwood Lothlórien Fangorn Mordor Gondor Rohan Harad commons:File:Sketch Map of Middle-earth.svg
Map with clickable links of the north-west of Middle-earth at the end of the Third Age , showing Eriador (left) and Rhovanion (right). At extreme left are Lindon and the Blue Mountains, all that remains of Beleriand after the War of Wrath .
Example of detailed map by Karen Wynn Fonstad
Fonstad created "the most comprehensive set" of thematic maps of Middle-earth, such as Frodo and Sam 's route to Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring . [ 13 ]
The Shire Tolkien and race Gondor Mordor Harad commons:File:Tolkien's Moral Geography of Middle-Earth.svg
Imagemap with clickable links of Tolkien's moral geography of Middle-earth, according to John Magoun [ 11 ]
Influences on Middle-earth's geography
Classical, medieval, and recent influences on the geography of Middle-earth . All locations are approximate. [ 28 ]
Illustration of legendary medieval forest
Tolkien borrowed the Arthurian place-name Brocéliande for an early version of Beleriand. [ 29 ] 1868 illustration by Gustave Doré