Middle Earth

[Greason Wolfe]

If I were to hazard a guess.... The circles show the locations of the icon insets lining the left side of the map. They also coincide with most of the major locations mentioned in the LotR trilogy. That's just me guessing though. Did I get it right? Did I win a chew toy?

Oh and before I forget, this is a fine map. Very fine indeed.

[Sapiento]

I repeat, this is one of the coolest maps of Middle-earth I've ever seen.
What do these white circles around some locations mean?
And one note - a typo in the name: Erech - not Ereth.
And Erech is not a town (as the symbols on many maps suggest). Erech was the name of a hill, or hill-top, Upon the summit stood a smooth black globe - the Stone of Erech.

You didn't understand. I don't mean to correct mistakes in the creation of the Tolkien world. I'm fine with Mordor's square mountain range.
But I think that when we draw a map of Middle-earth, we should focus more on the content of the books, not on existing maps.

A few examples:
1. On many maps, Erech is represented by the symbol of the town - and that's a mistake. Erech was a hill.
2. The Nurn coasts was Mordor's agricultural land, so it was green, not desert.
3. Rohan was not a flat plain. It was rather a hilly steppe, especially its northern part called Wold (term used to describe a range of hills consisting of open country overlying limestone or chalk).
4. And so on.

So instead of once again redrawing the map, maybe we should draw the Middle East as it is described in the books.

Ok, thank you! As I said before - it's a long time since I've read the book.
But I'm thankful for your comments - map updated. If you can give more advise for improvement please do so.

If I were to hazard a guess.... The circles show the locations of the icon insets lining the left side of the map. They also coincide with most of the major locations mentioned in the LotR trilogy. That's just me guessing though. Did I get it right? Did I win a chew toy?

Oh and before I forget, this is a fine map. Very fine indeed.

Indeed, white circles are the illustrations on the side. And thank you!