Obviously descriptions are relative: 'Far Harad' may have seemed quite far indeed to a Hobbit map-maker, but there's a LOT of Harad beyond even that, and 'Rhûn' barely even begins the journey East. This only gets us about half the distance to the Equator, which is a good deal further off the map. The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir are at about the latitude of ancient Troy.īased on this we can overlay a map of Middle-earth on a map of our world and get something like the following: If Hobbiton and Rivendell are taken (as intended) to be at about the latitude of Oxford, then Minas Tirith, 600 miles south, is at about the latitude of Florence. But this is not a purely 'Nordic' area in any sense. The action of the story takes place in the North-west of 'Middle-earth', equivalent in latitude to the coastlands of Europe and the north shores of the Mediterranean. In Letter 294 Tolkien describes his world as follows:
