A chapter covers regional maps, and a short chapter focuses on The Hobbit. The maps are organised first by period, with chapters on the First, Second, and Third Ages of Middle-earth. Further maps are given of significant events, such as the Battle of the Pelennor Fields in front of Minas Tirith. For example, the city of Minas Tirith is mapped on a single page, the main map giving a perspective view of the whole city, while three insets show the nearly-circular plan of the city, a plan of the citadel in the innermost circle, and a labelled cutaway drawing of the White Tower at the centre of the citadel. Ĭity maps and floor plans for important buildings are included. For example, she compares the western Emyn Muil with its two ridges to the Weald with its pair of inward-facing downs (an anticline). Fonstad explains in the atlas, and in her article about it, how she came to decide on such matters. Fonstad's discussion includes suggestions as to the geology that could explain various formations, and points that are contradictory between multiple accounts. For each area the history of the land is taken into account, as well as geography on a larger scale and from there maps are drawn. The maps are treated as if they are of real landscapes, drawn according to the rules of a real atlas. The Atlas of Middle-earth provides many detailed maps of the lands described in Tolkien's books. Approach įonstad compares Gondor's Emyn Muil to the Weald of Kent, as it has a pair of inward-facing downs. HarperCollins republished the revised edition in London in 1994, reprinting it in 1999, 2016, and 2017. A revised and updated second edition was published in 1991, after Christopher Tolkien had edited and published eight volumes of The History of Middle-earth following his father's death. The Atlas of Middle-earth was first published in hardback by Houghton Mifflin in the United States in 1981.

Tolkien provided overview maps for each book. Tolkien and presented in his bestselling books The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955). Middle-earth is the fictional world created by the philologist and fantasy author J. Karen Wynn Fonstad earned a master's degree in Geography, specializing in cartography, from the University of Oklahoma, and worked as Director of Cartographic Services at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh before she focused on raising children and writing atlases of fictional worlds.

Atlas earth