# How big is Middle Earth?



## Sammyboy

How big is Middle Earth, roughly in miles/square miles? How far would you say it is that a)Frodo and Sam would have journeyed from Hobbiton to Mordor, and b) Bilbo's journey from Hobbiton to the Lonely Mountain, both in by the route they took and as the crow (or Eagle!  ) flies? Or is it simply that as these are tales supposedly set a long time ago in England/Britain, that the answer is simply the same as the area covered by modern England/Britian?

I'm just wondering, would be be a distance that we would find fairly astounding, or the kind of distance we wouldn't think too much about driving for a day trip? I'm not being flippant, just trying to get an idea of the scale of their adventures and how far these characters have had to travel.

Btw, I'm talking about the area that you see in the map at the back of your copy of LoTR, as I know there is a lot more of Middle Earth than that, but it generally doesn't come into many tales afaik.


----------



## Alcuin

The late Karen Wynn Fonstad has a day-by-day break-down of the travels of Sam and Frodo, Merry and Pippin, and Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli from the time Frodo left Hobbiton until the destruction of the Ring in her book _The Atlas of Middle-earth_. You should find a table with each day of the Quest listed along with the number of miles traveled and her estimate of miles per hour of movement.

She also has maps from which you can estimate the size of northwest Middle-earth, including Mordor, Gondor, Rhovanion and Eriador, and Beleriand; Númenor; and Middle-earth as a whole.


----------



## Barliman Butterbur

Sammyboy said:


> How big is Middle Earth, roughly in miles/square miles?



In looking at the ME maps, I always had the totally knee-jerk fuzzy feeling that it was roughly the size of the landmass which contains Britain, Scotland, Ireland, etc. Totally embarrased, here I display my APPALLING lack of knowledge of the geography thereabouts... 

Barley


----------



## Sammyboy

I'll have to get myself that book when I have a bit more money! 

So what kind of distances am I looking at then, just to satisfy my curiosity till I get that book?


----------



## Eledhwen

You might find this page useful.


----------



## Sammyboy

Eledhwen said:


> You might find this page useful.


 
Thanks Eledhwen! So, according to the diagram on the bottom of that page with the map of Middle Earth overlaid over the map of Europe, Frodo and Sam started their trip from somewhere around Birmingham (only about 30 mins drive from where I live!), and finished their journey somewhere around Mid-Italy or in the Adriatic, and Bilbo ended up somewhere around Finland/Sweden?

Wow, quite a journey, and mainly on foot too!


----------



## Shireman D

Interesting that their journey should start from Birmingham in your approximation - didn't JRRT once write that the Shire is the English midlands - Warwickshire, I think I'm right in saying. Serendipity.


----------



## Bucky

The Atlas of Middle Earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad has a map of ALL Middle Earth based on Tolkien's own map made early on, I guess between 1917 - 1930.

It clearly shows that Middle Earth is based on the 'Eurasian-African Continental land mass. 
The Shire (an old English name for, uh, land in England) is clearly placed where England would be.
Harad is where Africa would be, and Men from Far Harad are described as 'Black men with red tongues like half trolls'.
Easterlings are described as 'swertings', 'swarthy'. This means 'dark', i.e. they are 'Indians' or 'Mongolian' type peoples and not Oriental........

The people of Near Harad, which would roughly fit into North Africa, are attacked by Faramir as Frodo & Sam look on & are described like this:

'Black plaits of hair'
'Brown hands'


Sounds like he could be Arabian to me.....

Gondor, on the other side of the Anduin, would fit into Spain, Italy & Greece.

Mordor, believe it or not, fits into the Middle East. Actually, this kinda makes sense, no?

And, to top it off, Dagorlad, the Battle Plain, roughly fits where Megedo, aka Armegegdon, is.
Dagorlad has had more battles than any spot in Middle Earth, and likewise, Megedo is the sight of more battles (37) than ANY place in Earth's history.
Number 38 will be earth's last battle (for 1000 years at least).

Some coincidence, huh?


----------



## Eledhwen

There is a link on the web page I gave to here.Those grids are based upon the idea that: 

Hobbiton is at the Latitude of Oxford (51.75 degrees North. Longtitude not mentioned.) and the Central Meridian is at Rivendell. This map might make it a little clearer. It's C Tolkien's map overlaid onto Europe.

Looking at a better copy of C Tolkien's map, if Oxford is Hobbiton; this puts my own town somewhere at the south point of the White Tower Hills, inland of the gap leading to the Grey havens. The topography's all wrong, but I like the idea anyway.

Sammyboy, this would put StaffordShire somewhere west of the Hills of Evendium, maybe on the same lattitude as Annúminas.

Shireman, Tolkien said that Fair Kortirion (the Elven city) was Warwick (Book of Lost Tales)


----------



## Sammyboy

So I could've been perhaps a Ranger then if I lived in Middle Earth!

Thanks for the replies, apologies for the late reply as I've not been on here for a year now. I now have a decent idea of scale for Middle Earth and the distances that the Fellowship traveled.


----------



## Bucky

Actually, I re-saw that show on 'Armeggedon'....

There were 'only' 34 battles at Meggedo.

Only 34.

"Just the facts, Maam"

And, technically, Mordor is in The Balkans if you overlay a map of Europe on top of Middle-Earth, but I still hold that this is too literal & when looking at where The Mouths of Anduin is as being (obviously) the Mediterraen Sea, & Harad as Africa, then Mordor then becomes the Middle East.....

And no doubt Tolkien based M-E this way.


----------



## Barliman Butterbur

I've always thought it was about the size of the British Isles, and that the rest of Middle-earth is about the size of Earth.

Barley


----------



## Firawyn

What an incredibly useful thread....humm. Glad I found this.


----------



## Eledhwen

Bucky said:


> And, technically, Mordor is in The Balkans if you overlay a map of Europe on top of Middle-Earth.


I wonder if Tolkien knew this about Bulgaria's history? :-

3450 BC World's first cities appear along banks of Tigris and Euphrates. They make up Uruk culture, with principal city Uruk, Biblical Erech. This culture invents writing and lunar calendar, uses metals, develops medicine, builds monumental architecture.

3450 BC In Uruk culture no unified government evolves, and they remain independent for almost one thousand years

Source


----------



## Thráin II

Eledhwen said:


> I wonder if Tolkien knew this about Bulgaria's history? :-
> 
> 3450 BC World's first cities appear along banks of Tigris and Euphrates. They make up Uruk culture, with principal city Uruk, Biblical Erech. This culture invents writing and lunar calendar, uses metals, develops medicine, builds monumental architecture.
> 
> 3450 BC In Uruk culture no unified government evolves, and they remain independent for almost one thousand years
> 
> Source




I am quite sure he did know about it!


----------

