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I wonder who lives outside of Middle-earth and what is their life like? What are the names of the continents? Is there a big good map of Arda?

Edlothiad
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Vladimir Stazhilov
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1 Answers1

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The Earth which is known as Arda in the Lord of the Rings has a few continents. The stories mainly take place on Middle Earth, but there is also The Dark Lands, and Aman which is also known as the Undying Lands.

According to the LOTR Wikia..

Not much is known about this continent, except that it formed during Morgoth's marring of the world by breaking away from the main part of Middle-earth (Endor). No Elves or Dwarves lived there, but it is possible that wild Men may have lived there at some point. The Númenóreans probably visited it on their long journeys, although it is not known if they established dwellings there. Most of the continent is covered by vast dense forests bordering much of its shorelines.

The Atlas of Middle-earth pgs. 5 & 39

The Undying Lands is actually the place that most Elves and Ainur live.

It is to the west of Middle Earth.

In the wikia it states..

The Undying Lands were a realm inhabited by Ainur and Elves. The area included the continent of Aman and the island of Tol Eressëa. The ocean Belegaer separated the Undying Lands from the western shores of Middle-earth.

The history also states that

Originally, mortals were allowed to trade with those from Valinor in the Undying Lands, but were forbidden to sail west beyond the sight of Númenor. However, in SA 3319 (Second Age), the treacherous Sauron deceived Ar-Pharazôn, the last King of Númenor, to believe that the ruler of the Undying Lands would be granted immortality and persuaded him that this was man's right and he had but to claim it. To prevent the king's invasion, Ilúvatar destroyed Númenor beneath the ocean and set the Undying Lands forever beyond the reach of mortal Men. Elves were still permitted to sail across the sea to the Undying Lands, if they chose to (which most did).

The Silmarillion

Here is a depiction of what The Undying Lands and Middle Earth look like on a map

enter image description here

Just to be clear the above post is not a "canon" map but a depiction of what it's supposed to look like... from the research I have done there are no canon maps depicting places other than Middle Earth... the closest thing canon wise is.. which is pre-LOTR as well...

enter image description here

DoctorWho22
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  • I'm afraid that I have to -1 this for a David Day map, particularly since an actual Tolkien map (which looks nothing like this one) is available on the linked duplicates. –  Jan 27 '14 at 17:38
  • Unfortunately I don't believe there are any legit tolkien maps that show the undying lands and middle earth... I could be wrong though – DoctorWho22 Jan 27 '14 at 18:15
  • The maps printed in History of Middle-earth 4 are legit and by Tolkien. –  Jan 27 '14 at 19:40
  • I haven't read them but I would love to get my hands on them... Were they actually drawn by Tolkien himself or were the drawings renditions of what Tolkien thought the world looked like? When I say there are no canon maps of the undying lands and middle earth I mean both on the same map... The canon maps I have seen were drawn by Christopher Tolkien and usually only featured Middle Earth. – DoctorWho22 Jan 27 '14 at 19:44
  • The map you've now added to this answer contains Middle-earth and the Undying Lands, both on the same map, and was drawn by JRR Tolkien. I'm not sure what your difficulty is here; the map exists (it is in fact one of the only ones that exist) and is clearly the exact kind of map you're talking about. –  Jan 27 '14 at 20:06
  • It was drawn pre LOTR so it's just a map of Arda and it doesn't state where each one is... so you can only sort of speculate what each one is... In fact if you research about Christopher Tolkien it states on his wiki... He had the task of interpreting his father's sometimes self-contradictory maps of Middle-earth in order to produce the versions used in the books, and he re-drew the main map in the late 1970s to clarify the lettering and correct some errors and omissions. – DoctorWho22 Jan 27 '14 at 22:37
  • Can you clarify - are you talking about the region named "the north west of Middle-earth" on the LotR maps, rather than the continent of Middle-earth between the east and west continents? –  Jan 28 '14 at 00:02