Where in the World is Mordor?

[Spectre48]

Tolkien said that Middle Earth was just a previous version of our current earth, and insinuated (if not directly said) that it's Europe. Well, I got bored and tried to figure out where everything in Middle Earth could be while using a map editor for Europa Univeralis IV (An amazing game that I recommend to everyone who loves TW games). I did this more for me than for you, so if you don't like it, oh well! Having said that, I hope someone else finds this entertaining/interesting.

Oh, and no, I didn't go to the trouble of taking every other country out, or making exact borders or an extremely detailed backstory. Maybe in the future, but for now it's just basically mapdoodles.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The overall picture! It's... Meh. Kind of small and hard to make anything out until you know where they all are.


Physical map. Yaaay I'm posting maps that you have all seen before now. This thread already wins.


Boom. Here you can see Rohan (dark green, above Gondor), Gondor, beneath the White Mountains (Alps), and Mordor. Between the two lie a land that is known as the Dead Marshes, which have seen countless battles and wars.
1. Minas Tirith, at the eastern edge of the White Mountains.
2. Barad dur. Tower of the Dark Lord Sauron
3. The Black Gate.
4. Minas Morgul
5. Dunharrow, and a pass between Rohan and Gondor.


The Easterlings! Here, you have Rhun, along with...
1. Harad, complete with Near Harad, and
2. Far Harad.
3. The Variags of Khand
4. I think that this would be the Sea of Rhun, if not the whole Black Sea. Who knows if the sea level rose/fell.


Here We have...
1. Dale, just south of the Lonely Mountain (or where it used to be).
2. Mirkwood
3. The crater where Dol Guldur used to be. What may have happened to this and the Lonely Mountain?


Ahh, the Misty Mountains. Yup!
1. Khazad Dum. Or as most of you know it, Moria, towards the southern part of the Misty Mountains. I actually think Moria would be a bit further south, beneath the ocean.
2. Goblintown! Or the High Pass. Basically the mid point in the Misty Mountains. To the west is...
3. Imladris, or where I think it would be. Around here, ish.
4. Mount Gundabad would be somewhere up here.
5. I actually gave Lorien all of the land east of the...
6. The Great River Anduin (the Baltic). Fangorn would probably be... Denmarkish. Or the southern tip of Sweden. Yeah, I like the latter suggestion more.


This one is my personal favorite!
1. The Shire would be Ireland, and Hobbiton would be around here, if not a bit further north.
2. Bree, sometimes mentioned with the Shire, sometimes mentioned with men. Speaking of men...
3. Arnor! My favorite kingdom in LOTR lore. The great northern Dunedain realm, and the powerhouse that shut Sauron down the first time (with help from the Elves). Most of it is below the sea now, however.
4. Angmar. This one is a bit of a reach, as I actually think Angmar would be below the sea and this would be part of Arnor. Angmar is awesome though, so it shall be represented!
5. Enedwaith, bordered to the north by the rivers Gwathlo and Glanduin, separating it from the Dunedain realm of Arnor.
6. Dunland. The wild men of the west.
7. And here we have the crater of Isengard! I think that Eru laid waste to Isengarde, Dol Guldur, and Erebor (the Lonely Mountain) in whatever cataclysm that formed the world as it is now, perhaps because they were the beacons of corruption in the otherwise generally good realm of the west... Along with Moria, which as I mentioned would be below the sea as well. Well below the sea... Let's hope Norway doesn't dig too deep. Perhaps C'thulu and the Balrog have something in common


And last but not least, we have that boring old physical map again.
1. Mordor
2. The White Mountains above Gondor
3. The Misty Mountains, or what's left of them.
4. Bree and the Shirelands.
5. The Lonely Mountain/Laketown.
6. The crater that was Isengard.
7. The crater that was Dol Guldur.
8. The Gap of Rohan.

[♔atthias♔]

I like it +rep
greetings atthias

[alreadyded]

The LOTR mod they are trying to make for Rome 2 has many variations of this posted in their forum. They can't edit the map much so a lot of people have tried to fit it in different ways on the existing map.

[Spectre48]

Wow. I didn't mean to post that. Can a mod delete that so I can redo it? My bad! Here it is again, edited up, with spoilers tag!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Here's an updated version:

That's much better. A prettier, updated version of my Middle Europe. Here we have Middle Earth! Ignore the Iberian peninsula for now... and maybe the Italian one. I'll get to those later. But this map is leaving someone out!


Rhun! And I guess Dale. Don't know why, but I've never really liked Dale. Eventually I'd like to find a way to get rid of, or incorporate into my story, Nogorod and the Turkish areas. Perhaps incorporate Balchoth and the Wainriders somewhere...


Here we have the juicy part of LOTR once again - Gondor, Rohan, Mordor, and Harad. I've also added Umbar, influenced by a picture provided by queermobile (thanks again!)
The blue country is where I think the Anduin would have been. Somewhere in here, at least. It would have connected the Mediterranean with the Baltic. On the eastern banks, bordering Mordor, is the Gondorian province of Ithilien, and to the south of that is South Gondor, constantly fought over between Gondor and Harad/Umbar. You can see Khand off to the east, in Turkey, as well.
The white areas you see I have labelled as "New and Unclaimed Lands". This will be a theme repeated through the maps. I gave southern Italy to Khand, mostly because I didn't have enough nation points to add any more provinces to my New and Unclaimed Lands, and no more slots for custom civilizations. It's actually kind of grown on me, though. I'm leaning on giving it to Umbar instead, since it would make a bit more sense considering all the lore detailing Gondorian conquests of Umbar.
Lastly, I'll mention the Dagorlad. It was actually politically a part of Mordor, I would think. Also known simply as the "Battle Plain", the Dead Marshes would be in the western border provinces somewhere.


Here we have the northeastern edge of the map. Again, the blue country is a river - this time the River Running, flowing from the Sea of Rhun to the Lonely Mountain/Laketown. On one side of the river you have Rhovanion, stretching to Mirkwood (and technically includes Mirkwood), and on the other is Rhun. The Misty Mountains here are actually the Grey Mountains - I just kept it as one country because of a lack of custom slots. Lastly, again, I have the same Mirkwood/Dol Guldur placement.


The Misty Mountains! You can see I have them stretching down to Rhun, since that's where they would extend to before the cataclysm. Most of them, including Moria, are under water. Lorien and the east bank of the Anduin make up most of the rest of the peninsula, save for the south. This small strip, along with part of Denmark and northern Germany are Fangorn. Isengard is on the southwestern edge of the Misty Mountains, with Dunland nearby. I made Dunland a bit too large, and it's southeast of Isengard instead of northwest, but it's a small enough scope to be able to place them here and not have the map look too messed up.


I know how much most of you love this map! Yes, I've kept Ireland as the Shire, and yes I've kept England as Arnor. Let's get this straight: The Shire was a land that was an autonomous part of Arnor. So, one could say that the Shire IS Arnor, and thus it IS placed in England. I'd love to explain further my reasoning. And I will. Cardolan is another nation that probably shouldn't be there... Or at least should probably be a bit more squished up towards Arnor, since it was part of Arnor. Minhiriath and Enedwaith, lands of wild men, are also represented here.


Finally, we have an issue. I've covered almost all of Europe, North Africa and Turkey... Except for Spain. Now I've come up with two explanations for this.
1. The Lindon Proposition - the Teal country would be Lindon - the Elves. Somehow, in this version, Lindon would have had to shift from the northeast, collided with the south/Gondor, and form Spain. The Mountains separating Lindon from the Shire and Eriador/Arnor would be the Pyrenees. This one is a bit of a stretch, and I have other reasons for not thinking it that I'll get to later.
2. The Gondor Proposition - the purple country is an extension of Gondor, and the Pyrenees are just broken off of the White Mountains (the Alps). This would suggest that a large part of Gondor's southern coast was flooded.

And finally, two maps that I find really interesting after putting them next to each other, and the reason why I don't like my Lindon Proposition:



Note the backwards C shaped mass buried beneath the sea, just west Ireland, in the game map, and notice how close it is in shape to the landmass just west of the Shire in the Middle Earth map? (The Shire is right around/south of where the 'ARTH' in ARTHEDAIN' is.

[Spectre48]

The LOTR mod they are trying to make for Rome 2 has many variations of this posted in their forum. They can't edit the map much so a lot of people have tried to fit it in different ways on the existing map.

Interesting, I'll have to check those out. By the way, I love PCP, and the underdog story that goes with it.

[The Despondent Mind]

Ugh why would Tolkien acknowledge such a thing, I just don't see how does it bring anything positive to his Universe.

[Spectre48]

Ugh why would Tolkien acknowledge such a thing, I just don't see how does it bring anything positive to his Universe.

Because he created a fantastic universe and wanted his fans to imagine limitless possibilities for it? Why would you want to handicap your audience?

[The Despondent Mind]

Because he created a fantastic universe and wanted his fans to imagine limitless possibilities for it? Why would you want to handicap your audience?

What, how is having your own universe not connected with Earth "limiting your audience"?

[Spectre48]

What, how is having your own universe not connected with Earth "limiting your audience"?

It would be limiting a fan's ability to connect Middle Earth to our current earth, however feasible. Maybe we have a misunderstanding here? Let me rephrase: How is having your own universe and giving it a vague connection to earth a bad thing?

[The Despondent Mind]

It would be limiting a fan's ability to connect Middle Earth to our current earth, however feasible. Maybe we have a misunderstanding here? Let me rephrase: How is having your own universe and giving it a vague connection to earth a bad thing?

It is unnecessary, as it doesn't make it anywhere better or more interesting, it's like you have a perfect cake and you put ketchup on top of it because people that eat the cake also like fries.

[Spectre48]

This post originated in another thread (and is getting a lot more feedback ) so if you are interested, here's that thread: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...mordor.880091/

To combat piracy, they make it so many of their forums are only viewable if you own that game and have it registered. I'm unsure if that's the case for this thread, so if you can't see it then I apologize. Another hastily made picture and comment I made on that thread, concerning a discussion on the Iberian issue:



(Someone suggests I make all of Spain Gondor)

I'm not sure I follow. The geography wouldn't fit as neatly. I'd have to put Mordor in Italy, since that's the only reasonable place geographically to put it with a Spanish Gondor. Think of the landmass of Middle Earth and Europe as clay - it can be stretched, or pushed together to fit each other. Seas can rise and fall. When lands are stretched, seas or plains would take the place. When lands are pushed together, you see mountains/raised land. This could be an explanation for Spain - it seems as though the center point would be some place in Gondor, and the land would stretch in each direction (northeast to form France, southeast to form Spain, northwest to push Germany into existence, and west to put land between Gondor/Mordor and give existence to the Balkans.

[Joseignacio]

I always saw it more like this last image. For me it was always "clear" The Shire was Great Britain or Ireland, Rohan could be Germany. The rest more or less fits.

Consider too, that he published LoTR right after the WWII, when the Iron Curtain was being created and reinforced and the international tensions were growing. The easterlings/Mordor looks like the soviet area. Harad for the Muslim areas (of course black Africa too).

[Spectre48]

I always saw it more like this last image. For me it was always "clear" The Shire was Great Britain or Ireland, Rohan could be Germany. The rest more or less fits.

Consider too, that he published LoTR right after the WWII, when the Iron Curtain was being created and reinforced and the international tensions were growing. The easterlings/Mordor looks like the soviet area. Harad for the Muslim areas (of course black Africa too).

While this may be true, my goal and focus is not on population, nor culture. Solely on geography. Political tensions/boundaries have no influence on me other than landmarks, though I'm coming to realize in the other thread (over 3,000 views), that most people are looking at these maps to see countries, rather than the evolution of a continent. That's what I'm trying to get at. If only I had a map editing program haha.

[athanaric]

Mordor isn't meant to represent any specific country. The author himself repeatedly stressed that LotR is not an allegory for anyone or anything. You're free to project something into it, but chances are it's not what Tolkien meant.

[Spectre48]

Mordor isn't meant to represent any specific country. The author himself repeatedly stressed that LotR is not an allegory for anyone or anything. You're free to project something into it, but chances are it's not what Tolkien meant.

Blah. I'm going to repeat myself endlessly. That's exactly what I'm saying - Mordor represents *absolutely nothing*. ALL I'm doing is putting puzzles in the right place geographically, in order to figure how Middle Earth may have turned into modern Europe. I'm not saying Mordor is there because of some specific culture. I'm saying it's there because if you look at a physical map of Europe, then you'll see Mordor right there north of Constantinople/Istanbul.

[Spectre48]

Lindon, not Lorien. D'oh.

[Spectre48]

And here's a cleaned up version that doesn't say Lorien.
1. Lindon. Yes, Lindon, not Lorien.
2. The Shire. Yep, still Ireland, but you can see it consists of part of Southern Wales as well.
3. Bree. This is around where Tolkien grew up. It is sometimes considered part of the Shire, sometimes part of Eriador.
4. Annuminas, the great capital of Arnor. The Irish Sea is Lake Evendim.

5. Fornost, the second great capital of Arnor, and later Arthedain.
6. Amon Sul, or Weathertop, where Frodo encountered the Nazgul and Gandalf fought them all off.
7. Tharbad, the gateway to the south.
8. To the Misty Mountains.


New map for everyone's enjoyment. I made a new map of the Shire and Arnor. Note that I didn't change the map, since it's the same map, but only showing general areas of cities. All of this land remains part of the former kingdom of Arnor.


Edit: I know, Lindon, not Lorien. Will replace momentarily


Edit 2: Fixed. I just replaced the map.



And here's a cleaned up version that doesn't say Lorien.
1. Lindon. Yes, Lindon, not Lorien.
2. The Shire. Yep, still Ireland, but you can see it consists of part of Southern Wales as well.
3. Bree. This is around where Tolkien grew up. It is sometimes considered part of the Shire, sometimes part of Eriador.
4. Annuminas, the great capital of Arnor. The Irish Sea is Lake Evendim.
5. Fornost, the second great capital of Arnor, and later Arthedain.
6. Amon Sul, or Weathertop, where Frodo encountered the Nazgul and Gandalf fought them all off.
7. Tharbad, the gateway to the south.
8. To the Misty Mountains.

New map for everyone's enjoyment. I made a new map of the Shire and Arnor. Note that I didn't change the map, since it's the same map, but only showing general areas of cities. All of this land remains part of the former kingdom of Arnor.

[Joseignacio]

Mordor isn't meant to represent any specific country. The author himself repeatedly stressed that LotR is not an allegory for anyone or anything. You're free to project something into it, but chances are it's not what Tolkien meant.

The fact that he said that doesn't mean that's the truth, he might have had to answer this way to avoid inconveniences, for example in a press conference, asked by one national of the countries "suspected to be " Mordor.

Anyway this was a casual comment. As Spectre says this is another kind of divertment

[athanaric]

The fact that he said that doesn't mean that's the truth, he might have had to answer this way to avoid inconveniences, for example in a press conference, asked by one national of the countries "suspected to be " Mordor.

It's said in the foreword or introduction of the Lord of the Rings, so no. Anyway, regarding the correspondence between fictional Middle-earth cultures and their real world inspiration, you might want to watch this (it was linked earlier in the Tolkien general discussion thread):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NKlr0vRX34

[Spectre48]

New map for everyone's enjoyment. I made a new map of the Shire and Arnor. Note that I didn't change the map, since it's the same map, but only showing general areas of cities. All of this land remains part of the former kingdom of Arnor.