Middle-earth - maps and more!

Maps of Middle Earth

Middle-earth in colour - (282K) Clear, colour map of the northwest.

Stylised colour map - (96.1K) Clear colour map. A little stylised.

Large scale map - (1.76M) Monochrome. Absolute clearest and most detailed map I've found so far. But file size also rather montrous. Be patient.

Monochrome map - (779k) Very beautiful and artistically rendered map, from thereandbackagain.net.

Middle Earth, The Fourth Age - (37.3k) supposedly "legendary lost sequel to J.R.R. Tolkien's LOTR". You decide. Personally am tickled by uranium deposits in Mordor and the H.A.S.R.S (Hobbit's Autonomous Socialist Republic of the Shire).

Map with character drawings - (403k) Colour map of Middle-earth, with images of the Fellowship and Ringwraiths. Very pretty.

Movie poster map - (296k) Colour map from the New Line Cinema movie poster, with border of characters and scenes from the film. (Oops missing link... Will put that up soon. After I locate the file...)

Thematic Maps
(These maps are copyright (c) 1991 Karen Wynn Fonstad from her book 'The Atlas of Middle-earth'. She is a professional cartographer with a geography degree from the University of Wisconsin. Really helps when reading the books and in appreciating the film. Go get your own copy!)

In constructing Middle-earth, Tolkien included, in varying degrees, every component of our primary world: landforms, minerals, weather and climate, natural vegetation, agriculture, political units, population distribution, races, languages, transportation routes, even house types. By carefully intermingling each element, he produced an inner consistency of reality that is so essential to credibility of an imaginery setting. So successful was his imagery that his landscape seems to have become a living world in which we could walk bodily, breathing with Frodo and Sam the fresh fragrant air of Ithilien and the foul oppressive air of Mordor, if we could but find the way.

Although part of a unified system, each of the components are worthy of consideration and evaluation in their own right. Landforms provided more than a stage on which the story was played; the physical features were the visible results of the struggle between good and evil, the Valar and Melkor and Sauron. The hills and mountains, valleys and plains, seemed almost animate in their ability to hinder or help the journeys of the various travellers. Climate, and especially weather, were very important in Tolkien’s tales. Snow drove the fellowship from the Redhorn Pass. Fog lost the hobbits on the Barrow-downs. Vegetation was essential not onlu in enhancing the setting but also in providing yet another medium through which the forces of good and evil, joy and fear, could reach out to the travellers and readers. Tolkien included a complete range of flora, from the short dry grass of the Downs to the majestically towering mallorns of Lorien. His love and knowledge of trees was especially evident in the importance he placed on forests (and in his conception of the Ents). The insertion of living beings completed the imagery, and their distribution told a story in itself. From Orcs, Balrogs and dragons, to Elves, Dwarves, Men, Ents and Hobbits, their rich tapestry of cultures, languages and individual histories provided enormous depth and breadth to the fascinating and utterly believable world of Middle-earth.

>> Landforms (475k)
>> Climate (550k)
>> Vegetation (516k)
>> Population (313k)
>> Languages (492k)

The Fellowship of the Rings
These jouneys maps are also from Karen Wynn Fonstad (c) 1991

>> Journey from Bag End to Rivendell (538k)
>> Journey from Rivendell to Lorien (355k)
>> Journey from Lothlorien to Amon Hen (369k)
>> The Shire, original map from 'The Hobbit' (134k)
>> Colour map of Bilbo's adventures. Artiscally-rendered. (317k)

The Two Towers

>> The journey of Frodo and Sam (413k)
>> Map of Gondor and Mordor (354k)

Other Middle-earth Tours

Interative Two Towers Guide - from Hollywood.com. Follow the journeys of the various characters on an interactive map. Also contains information on the various cultures and places of Middle-earth. Requires Flash plug-in.

The Lord of the Rings Maps - A great collection of over 200 maps from The Hobbit, LOTR, and the Silmarillion.

Maps of Middle Earth - maps in pdf format

Tolkien Atlas - an interactive atlas of the world as created by J.R.R. Tolkien

'Location' of Middle Earth - northwestern Europe and Middle Earth

A Walk through Middle Earth - inspiration from places in England

Middle-Earth

No self-respecting geographer will overlook the importance of maps. Besides, they make great wallpaper, either for your room or computer :) Also help when reading the book. Check out the beautiful maps and sites below.

Maybe we should turn the map...