Position and scale

[hellricer]

When you overlay Middle-earth data over the real world, it shows up in Africa near 0°N 0°W. Moreover, the map seem to be shrunk exactly by about half. Distances mentioned in texts and scale-bars on maps confirm this as well.

It would be nice to reposition/reproject it so it matches with Europe better while keeping the shape of the map intact.

There are several hints from Tolkien and there have been various attempts to interpret them. Some resources to start:

• Re-reading the Map of Middle-earth: Fan Cartography's Engagement with Tolkien's Legendarium
• The consequences of making Middle-earth round
• Georefencing Middle Earth
• Some attempts found on reddit: [1], [2]
• Chapter Round Versus Flat in The Atlas of Middle-earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad

Note: I have no idea how to fix this, but I thought we should at least acknowledge the problem.

[jvangeld]

We had an excellent article on georeferencing and our custom coordinate system on our old website. Unfortunately the Internet Archive didn't archive it. I'm trying to figure out if anyone saved a copy.

http://web.archive.org/web/20110727075931/http://www.me-dem.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=34:mapping-articles&Itemid=33&layout=default

On Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 3:36 AM hellricer notifications@github.com wrote:

When you overlay Middle-earth data over the real world, it shows up in Africa near 0°N 0°W. Moreover, the map seem to be shrunk exactly by half — one pixel in the 100m DEM covers area of 200x200m on the map. Distances mentioned in texts as well as scale-bars on maps confirm this as well.

It would be nice to reposition/reproject it to match with Europe better while keeping the shape of the map intact.

Note that there are several hints from Tolkien and there have been various attempts to interpret them. Some resources to start:

• Re-reading the Map of Middle-earth: Fan Cartography's Engagement with Tolkien's Legendarium https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol6/iss1/4/
• The consequences of making Middle-earth round https://mapsburgh.tumblr.com/post/112701741801/the-consequences-of-making-middle-earth-round
• Georefencing Middle Earth http://gisninja.blogspot.com/2012/12/georeferening-middle-earth.html
• Some attempts found on reddit: [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/316t5p/i_projected_middleearth_at_the_correct_scale_onto/, [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1iqp1a/middle_earth_with_european_countries_at_the_same/
• Chapter Round Versus Flat in The Atlas of Middle-earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad

Note: I have no idea how to fix this, but I thought we should at least acknowledge the problem.

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[hellricer]

I've found some posts on Cartographer's Guild which are probably related to this.

See this post and replies from Monks and SeerBlue.

[Andrettin]

The Middle-Earth map annotations by Tolkien and the illustrator Pauline Baynes which were revealed in 2015 could be a good starting point for placing the locations in the correct places vis-a-vis the real world: https://www.tolkiensociety.org/2015/11/tolkiens-annotated-map-of-middle-earth-transcribed/

This annotation in particular is very interesting: "Minas Tirith is about a latitude of Ravenna (but is 900 miles east of Hobbiton, more near Belgrade)."

References to latitudes by Tolkien were already known. But this gives us information on the longitude of a location, i.e. that Minas Tirith's longitude is near that of Belgrade. Taking Minas Tirith as the reference point (mapping its latitude to that of Ravenna and its longitude to that of Belgrade), the rest of Middle-Earth can be placed on the map as well, via their relative positions compared to Minas Tirith.