Dol Amroth

[ravells]

This is too much fun not to join in, so I'm going for Dol Amroth. Just researching it now...more to follow!
I'm hoping to give quite a lot of detail about the process I'm going to use to map this city...more to remind myself about why I've made decisions than to inform!

best

Ravs

[J.Edward]

Excellent Ravs. Glad you're joining in.
I look forward to seeing what you'll do with Dol Amroth.

[arsheesh]

Very cool. Look forward to seeing another of your maps Ravs.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[ravells]

Well this is the only 'reliable' information I've managed to distill so far from the net:

• Being a coastal city, Dol Amroth was subject to occasional attacks by the Corsairs of Umbar. The fifteenth prince was slain in battle against these sea raiders in T.A. 2746.[11]
• Sea-walls protected Dol Amroth from the waves in the windy bay, and within the city were the tall Sea-ward Tower - Tirith Aear - and the castle of the Princes of Dol Amroth, who ruled Belfalas.From <http://thainsbook.net/towns.html>
• The name Dol Amroth means "Hill of Amroth," referring to the high promontory on which the city was built and to the legend of the Elf-lord Amroth who was lost off the coast in the Bay of Belfalas.
• Numeronean / Elvish by descent - would have used Elven graceful architecture mixed with Numeronean architecture (more reliant on strength than magic).
• With that, we can come to a final estimate of Gondor’s total population at the end of the Third Age – somewhere between 3 and 4 million. This last from someone who has done their homework. MERP wiki says population 10.2k without any justification.

[ravells]

Jeez, just trying to work out how big the promentory is is leading me down all sorts of map projection paths, even based on Tolkiens original map. I'm now having to download a .tar extractor so I can see an overlaid projection of ME on Google earth.

It's never easy, is it? Still I suppose that's half the fun, ha! ha!

[ravells]

OK, so I've got the scale using an original Tolkien map and some fudge.

[ravells]

So not boring too much with the details. I've come to this:

Ghent vs. Dubrovnik for Dol Amroth, both with about a population under 100,000 (within the city walls) and of very different sizes. Dubrovnik was about 0.2 square miles and Ghent about 2 square miles (although who knows on what basis these figures are calculated and how many orbital settlements are included). I've had enough of this research now. What I do know is that the size of the city compared to the size of the promontory was pretty small...so time to find a good location for it. Probably the natural harbour where the small bump meets the big bump?

[ravells]

Working out a composition for the map now. Here is my first idea...which I don't really like much.

[Abu Lafia]

Hey ravells, good to see you joining in! Looks like a great and well thought out start. I like the composition so far. It's great that you give such detailed insight in your thought and working processes. Looking forward to see it progress.
Cheers,
AL

[ChickPea]

Yup, everything Abu said above^^

Looking forward to seeing what you do next.