Anyhow, recently Strange Maps covered a UCLA geography professor’s attempt to map the
geographic location of Middle Earth. Taking his charge from Tolkien’s suggestion that Middle Earth is a part of our own earth, but from a previous era,
Prof. Peter Bird. In this map, The Shire is in southwest England, the Gray Havens in Ireland, Helm’s Deep near Basel, Edoras in Bavaria, and Mordor is (perhaps appropriately) in Transylvania.
Visually, the interesting thing about the map is how Bird overlaid Middle Earth atop present-day Europe. Bird doesn’t describe his method, which is too bad, but probably expected since this is a project borne of geekery more than scholarship. It does make me think of the one example of a
certain formerly popular geography videogame that didn’t get made: Where in Middle Earth is Carmen San Diego. Too bad they didn’t get the license.