Thegeography of Middle-earth encompasses the physical, political, and moralgeography ofJ. R. R. Tolkien's fictional continentMiddle-earth on the planetArda, but widely taken to mean all of creation (Eä) as well as all of his writings about it.[1] Arda was created as a flat world, incorporating a Western continent,Aman, which became the home of the godlikeValar, as well as Middle-earth. At the end of theFirst Age, the Western part of Middle-earth,Beleriand, was drowned in the War of Wrath. In theSecond Age, a large island,Númenor, was created in the Great Sea,Belegaer, between Aman and Middle-earth; it was destroyed in a cataclysm near the end of the Second Age, in which Arda was remade as a spherical world, and Aman was removed so that Men could not reach it.
InThe Lord of the Rings, Middle-earth at the end of theThird Age is described as having free peoples, namelyMen,Hobbits,Elves, andDwarves in the West, opposed to peoples under the control of the Dark LordSauron in the East. Some commentators have seen this asimplying a moral geography of Middle-earth. Tolkien scholars have traced many features of Middle-earth to literary sources such asBeowulf, thePoetic Edda, or the mythicalMyrkviðr. They have in addition suggested real-world places such asVenice,Rome, andConstantinople/Byzantium as analogues of places in Middle-earth. ThecartographerKaren Wynn Fonstad has created detailed thematic maps for Tolkien's major Middle-earth books,The Hobbit,The Lord of the Rings, andThe Silmarillion.
Tolkien's Middle-earth was part of his created world ofArda. It was a flat world surrounded by ocean. It included theUndying Lands of Aman andEressëa, which were all part of the wider creation,Eä. Aman and Middle-earth were separated from each other by the Great SeaBelegaer, analogous to theAtlantic Ocean. The western continent, Aman, was the home of theValar, and the Elves called theEldar.[T 1][1] Initially, the western part of Middle-earth was the subcontinentBeleriand; it was engulfed by the ocean at the end of theFirst Age.[1]Ossë, on behalf of the Valar, then raised the island continent ofNúmenor as a gift to the now homelessMen of Beleriand, thenceforth calledNúmenóreans.
AfterEru Ilúvatar destroyed Númenor near the end of the Second Age, he remade Arda as a round world, and the Undying Lands were removed from Arda so that Men could not reach them. TheElves could go there only by theStraight Road and in ships capable of passing out of the sphere of the earth. Tolkien then equated Arda, consisting of both Middle-earth's planet and the heavenly Aman, with theSolar System, the Sun and Moon being celestial objects in their own right, no longer orbiting the Earth.[1][3]
The extreme west of Middle-earth in the First Age wasBeleriand. It and Eriador were separated from much of the south of Middle-earth by the Great Gulf. Beleriand was largely destroyed in the cataclysm of theWar of Wrath, leaving only a remnant coastal plain, Lindon, just to the west of the Ered Luin (also called Ered Lindon or Blue Mountains). The cataclysm divided Ered Luin and Lindon by the newly created Gulf of Lune; the northern part was Forlindon, the southern Harlindon.[4]
In the northwest of Middle-earth, Eriador was the region between the Ered Luin and the Misty Mountains. Early in the Third Age, the northern kingdom of Arnor founded byElendil occupied a large part of the region. After its collapse, much of Eriador became wild; regions such as Minhiriath, on the coast south of the River Baranduin (Brandywine), were abandoned. A small part of the region was occupied byHobbits to formthe Shire. To the northwest lay Lake Evendim, once called Nenuial by the Elves. A remnant of the ancient forest of Eriador survived throughout the Third Age just to the east of the Shire as theOld Forest, the domain ofTom Bombadil.[T 2] Northeast of there isBree, the only place where hobbits and Men live in the same villages. Further east from Bree is the hill of Weathertop with the ancient fortress of Amon Sûl, and thenRivendell, the home ofElrond. South from there is the ancient land of Hollin, once the elvish land of Eregion, where theRings of Power were forged. At the Grey Havens (Mithlond), on the Gulf of Lune,Círdan built the ships in which the Elves departed from Middle-earth to Valinor.[T 3][5]
The Misty Mountains were thrown up by the Dark LordMelkor in theFirst Age to impedeOromë, one of the Valar, who often rode across Middle-earth hunting.[T 4] TheDwarf-realm ofMoria was built in the First Age beneath the midpoint of the mountain range. The two major passes across the mountains were the High Pass or Pass of Imladris nearRivendell, with a higher and a lower route,[T 5][T 6] and the all-year Redhorn Pass further south near Moria.[6]
East of the Misty Mountains, Anduin, the Great River, flows southwards, with the forest ofMirkwood to its east. On its west bank opposite the southern end of Mirkwood is the Elvish land ofLothlorien. Further south, backing on to the Misty Mountains, lies the forest ofFangorn, home of the tree-giants, theents. In a valley at the southern end of the Misty Mountains isIsengard, home to thewizardSaruman.[7]
Just to the South of both Fangorn and Isengard is the wide grassy land of theRiders of Rohan, who providecavalry to its southerly neighbour,Gondor. 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. Gondor's border with Rohan is the Ered Nimrais, the White Mountains, which run east–west from the sea to a point near the Anduin; at that point is Gondor's capital city,Minas Tirith.[8]
Across the river to the East is the land ofMordor. It is bordered to the north by the Ered Lithui, the Ash Mountains; to the west by the Ephel Duath, the Mountains of Shadow. Between those two ranges, at Mordor's northwest tip, are the Black Gates of theMorannon. In the angle between the two ranges is the volcanic Plateau of Gorgoroth, with the tall volcano of Orodruin orMount Doom, where the Dark LordSauron forged theOne Ring. To the mountain's east is Sauron's Dark Tower,Barad-dûr.[9]
To the south of Gondor and Mordor lieHarad and Khand.[7]
To the east of Rhovanion and to the north of Mordor lies the Sea of Rhûn, home to theEasterlings. North of that lie the Iron Hills ofDain'sdwarves; between those and Mirkwood isErebor, the Lonely Mountain, once home toSmaug thedragon, and afterwards toThorin's dwarves.[10] The large lands to the east of Rhûn and to the south and east of Harad are not described in the stories, which take place in the north-western part of Middle-earth.[11][12]
The events ofThe Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings take place in the north-west of the continent of Middle-earth. Bothquests begin in the Shire, travel east through the wilds of Eriador toRivendell and then across the Misty Mountains, involve further travels in the lands ofRhovanion or Wilderland to the east of those mountains, and return home to the Shire. The cartographerKaren Wynn Fonstad preparedThe Atlas of Middle-earth to clarify and map the two journeys – ofBilbo Baggins inThe Hobbit, and ofFrodo Baggins inThe Lord of the Rings – as well as the events described inThe Silmarillion.[14] The editor ofTolkien Studies,David Bratman, notes that the atlas provides historical,geological, and battle maps, with a detailed commentary and explanation of how Fonstad approached the mapping task from the available evidence.[15] Michael Brisbois, also inTolkien 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.[17]
Stentor Danielson, a Tolkien scholar, notes that Tolkien did not provide the same "elaborate textual history" to contextualise his mapsas he did for his writings. Danielson suggests that this has assisted the tendency among Tolkien's fans to treat his maps as "geographical fact".[13] He calls Fonstad's atlas "magisterial",[13] and comments that like Tolkien, Fonstad worked from the assumption that the maps, like the texts, "are objective facts" which the cartographer must fully reconcile. He gives as an instance the work that she did to make the journey of Thorin's company inThe Hobbit consistent with the map, something that Tolkien found himself unable to do. 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.[18] The major nations that appear inThe Lord of the Rings are Rohan[19] and Gondor on the side of the Free Peoples,[20] and Mordor and its allies Harad (Southrons) and Rhûn (Easterlings) on the side of the Dark Lord.[21] Gondor, once extremely powerful, is by that time much reduced in its reach, and has lost control of Ithilien (bordering Mordor) and South Gondor (bordering Harad).[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.[23]
With his "Southrons" from Harad, Tolkien had—in the view of John Magoun, writing in theJ. R. R. 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. Magoun explains that Gondor is both virtuous, being West, and has problems, being South; Mordor in the Southeast is hellish, while Harad in the extreme South "regresses into hot savagery".[11] Steve Walker similarly speaks of "Tolkien's moral geography", naming the North "barbaric", South "the region of decadence", East "danger" but also the "locale of adventure", West "safety" (and uttermost West "ultimate safety"), North-West "specifically English insularity" where hobbits of the Shire live "in provincial satisfaction".[24]
Jared Lobdell writes of the significance of North and West, and of their opposites. He describes "the dominant myth" ofThe Lord of the Rings as being "of the West", writing that if the West represents Heaven, then the East at least in part stands for Hell "though the symmetry is incomplete".[25] The asymmetry derives from the fact that the West encompasses both the drowned and vanished Númenor, and the Undying Lands of the Uttermost West, by the Third Age "beyond the circles of the World" and unreachable except by theOld Straight Road. Middle-earth is then in the middle, between this elaborate West and the ordinary East of the planetArda.[25] Tolkien's conception of the West, Lobdell writes, is derived fromHy Breasail, the Isles of the Blestin Celtic mythology; on the drownedLyonesse[25] which had, the legend runs, been part of England;[26] and on the CelticImmram tales, the voyages to the West in that mythology. Númenor, in the shape of the Isle of Elenna, will be raised up again at the end of the world: it is not part of Middle-earth.[25] The North, Lobdell writes, then preserves the memory of the West, just as it preservesancient Evil in the form ofOld Man Willow and theBarrow-wights.[27]
| West | Middle | East | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Undying Lands (inaccessible) | Númenor (drowned; will be raised up) | Middle-earth | The geographical East ofArda |
Other scholars such as Walter Scheps and Isabel G. MacCaffrey have noted Middle-earth's "spatial cum moral dimensions",[28][29] though not identically with Magoun's interpretation. In their view, North and West are generally good, South and East evil. 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 bothBoromir andDenethor. 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 evilBlack Riders appear first in the Eastfarthing, while the once good but corruptedSaruman's men arrive in the Southfarthing.[28] J. K. Newman compares the adventurous quest to Mordor to "the perpetual temptation felt in the West 'to hold the gorgeous East in fee'" (citingWordsworth onVenice), in a tradition which he traces back toHerodotus and to the myth of theGolden Fleece.[30]
Tolkien scholars includingJohn Garth have traced many features of Middle-earth to literary sources or real-world places. Some places in Middle-earth can be more or less firmly associated with a single place in the real world, while other locations have had two or more real-world origins proposed for them. The sources are diverse, spanningclassical,medieval, andmodern elements.[31] Other elements relate toOld English poetry: several of the customs of Rohan in particular can be traced toBeowulf, on which Tolkien was an expert.[33]
Some Middle-earth placenames were based on the sound of places named in literature; thus, Beleriand was borrowed from theBroceliand of medieval romance.[32] Tolkien tried out many invented namesin search of the right sound, in Beleriand's case including Golodhinand, Noldórinan ("valley of theNoldor"), Geleriand, Bladorinand, Belaurien, Arsiriand, Lassiriand, and Ossiriand (later used as a name for the easternmost part of Beleriand).[T 7] The Elves have been linked to Celtic mythology.[34] TheBattle of the Pelennor Fields has parallels with theBattle of the Catalaunian Fields.[35] The Misty Mountains derive from thePoetic Edda, where the protagonist in theSkírnismál notes that his quest will involve misty mountains peopled with orcs and giants,[36] while the mountains' character was partly inspired by Tolkien's travels in theSwiss Alps in 1911.[T 8] Mirkwood is based onMyrkviðr, the romantic vision of the dark forests of the North.[37]Scholars have likened Gondor toByzantium (medieval Istanbul),[38] while Tolkien connected it to Venice.[T 9] TheCorsairs of Umbar have been linked to theBarbary corsairs of the late Middle Ages.[39] Númenor echoes the mythicalAtlantis described byPlato.[T 10]
About the origins of his storytelling andthe place of cartography within it, Tolkien stated in a letter:[36]
I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit (generally with meticulous care for distances). The other way about lands one in confusions and impossibilities, and in any case it is weary work to compose a map from a story.[T 11]
Writing inMythlore,Jefferson P. Swycaffer suggested that the political and strategic situations of Gondor and Mordor in theSiege of Gondor were "analogous toConstantinople facing the boxshape ofAsia Minor"; that "Dol Amroth makes a fineVenice"; that the Rohirrim and their grasslands are comparable to "Hungary of the Magyars, who were weak allies of Byzantine Constantinople"; and that theCorsairs of Umbar resembled theBarbary pirates who servedMehmed the Conqueror.[40]
The linguistDavid Salo writes that Gondor recalls "a kind of decaying Byzantium"; its piratical enemy Umbar like the seagoingCarthage; the Southrons (of Harad) "Arab-like"; and the Easterlings "suggestingSarmatians,Huns andAvars".[41]
Thegeologists Margaret M. Howes in 1967,[42] Robert C. Reynolds in 1974,[43] and thenWilliam Sarjeant in 1992, used the information from theillustrations,maps, and text ofJ. R. R. Tolkien's fiction, especiallyThe Lord of the Rings, to create a conjectural reconstruction ofMiddle-earth's geology. They proposed tectonic movements and glaciations to shape the described landscapes.[44]
Thegeologist Alex Acks, writing onTor.com, outlines mismatches between Tolkien's maps and the processes ofplate tectonics which shape the Earth'scontinents andmountain ranges. Acks comments that no natural process creates right-angle junctions in mountain ranges, such as are seen aroundMordor and at both ends of theMisty Mountains on Tolkien's maps.[45] In addition, Tolkien's rivers fail to behave like natural rivers, forming regularly-branched streams indrainage basins demarcated by high ground.[46]
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