Lalaith of the Middle-Earth Science Pages (worth exploring in their own right) unearthed an interesting quote by J.R.R. Tolkien:
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. The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir are at about the latitude of ancient Troy. (L294)
This led him to come up with a projection of Middle-Earth on a map of Europe, giving a pretty interesting idea of the possible scale of Middle-Earth.
The same post in which I found that projection also had a link to The Map Of Middle Earth, in which someone took the time to trace a “scalable, vector-drawn map” from scratch, resulting in some very nice .PDF map files.
It’s a shame that Christopher Tolkien is being such a stick in the mud about some of these people’s work; it’s not as if these websites are profiting from any of this. I hate it when fan sites are bullied into removing their content by overly aggressive studios and executives. Why don’t they realize that they’re alienating their core fan base, and that these kinds of sites are easy ways to get free advertising and word of mouth?
