From reading the LOTR books I’ve noticed that the continent appears to be rather empty.
What’s the deal? I realize that are a few cities and the Shire of course but a lot of the land seems to be totally devoid of any settlement; it’s just wilderness basically.
How could any sort of commerce or trade develop from what appears to be a largely uninhabited continent?
Yeah there’s the Orcs in the Misty mountains and of course Mordor, but I don’t really count them since the Orcs appear to not take part in trading with the other races
I seem to recall reading something about a major plague wiping out the population?
you know, i don’t know anything about a plague but it’s highly possible… after all, most of the major species are well aware of each other’s existences… minus hobbits, of course, and i believe the ents, though i’m not positive–it’s been a while-- but they even had hobbits in their legends, just didn’t believe they existed.
anyway, the point is, at some point in the past all the lands of middle earth found out about each other. also, they all seem extremely self-sufficient, and trade between lands appears rare.
beyond that, i don’t know. but someone here definitely will…
Not really answering your question, but a few things to bear in mind:
The continent known as Middle Earth is (IIRC) merely the rump of a larger landmass that fell into the sea at the end of the First Age.
The (human) kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor presumably lost a lot of their populations, since Arnor no longer exists at the time of LoTR and Gondor has shrunk in territory.
These human kingdoms were essentially refugee outposts established by escapees from Numenor.
Elvish lands have definitely suffered depopulation, e.g., Hollin on the border of Moria.
Elves generally are getting out of Middle Earth and humans haven’t yet come into the fore.
Well there are areas which are basically uninhabited (Hollin for example). And these are the areas which are preferentially travelled by the fellowship. After all they are trying to avoid detection. So most of what we see are through the eyes of a group which are actively avoiding populated areas. Even once the three hunters get to Rohan they are following the orcs who are going out of their way to avoid the highly populated areas along the feet of the White Mountains. But once they hook up with Thoeden, they are passing though fairly thickly populated areas.
Most of ME seems to be reasonably populated. After all Rohan was able to consistantly and regularly form a ‘muster’ consisting of 10,000 odd mounted ‘knights’. This points to a population somewere in the range of ½ to 2½ million. Similar comparisons point to a Gondor population of 2 to 5 million. Dunland would have about half the population of Rohan. Arnor probably had about ½ million mostly in the Shire and in and around The Angle with several other scattered rural settlements like Bree.
In all most non-wilderness areas seem to have around a 5-10 people per km^2 which puts it a fair bit less than Roman or Medieval Europe which ranged from 10 to 15 people per km^2.
In many places trade seems to be fairly limited. But there are at least three trade networks that are mentioned. The first is the Eriador network, where the Shire, Dunland, Lindon and Dwarves seem to have brisk trade going. Enough that the inns of the Shire and Bree are consistantly filled with travellers. The second is the Rhovanion network, where the Dwarves, Wood Elves, Lake men, Beornings, and Dorwinon have a bit of trade largely based on the river Celduin. And the final one is the Gondor-Rohan network which seems based on the Anduin and Bay of Belfalas.
I expect there would be much heavier trade except that there had been a millenia long war which permanantly disrupted several natural routes. The Orcs for example would not only be non-particapants in trade, they acted as a barrier to it.
The great plague lasted from the 1630s to the 1640s. Most of the events in LotR take place in 3020-3021, nearly 1400 years later. I’m guessing the population has had plenty of time to rebound since then.
Very good point and I should have considered that. :smack:
I guess I just have a hard time imagining 1-2 million in Rohan and 2-5 million in Gondor since at least in my copy the only cities seem to be Minas Tirith and that city in Rohan where the royal family lives(can’t remember the name). I guess there would have to be other cities and isolated settlements in each respective realm, they simply aren’t depicted on the map.
Just from glancing at the map it seemed to be rather deserted, but what y’all are saying makes sense.
Well you are thinking in modern terms. Europe is probably a fair comparison to the areas covered in LotR. If we look at England around the 1300s. It has a population of several million. The exact number is AFAIK still debated. But with this population, England had only one city with 10,000+ residents, London. There were also a few dozen towns with 1,000+ residents. But beyond this most of the population (over 95%) lived in small villages and hamlets with a population in the dozens to low hundreds.
Rohan seems to compare pretty closely to this model. We see one large city, which not suprisingly is also the seat of government. We also see two other settled areas, Deeping Coomb and the refugues. Both are descibed as being fairly heavily populated. In fact Deeping Coomb appears to be briming with farms and cottages.
Once we get to Gondor we again know of one good sized city, Minas Tirith. We also hear of a couple of towns, Pelargir and Dol Amroth. And what portions of the countryside we see are again described as nearly solid farmland and villages. Aragorn’s company’s ride from Erech across Lamedon and Lebennin is some 300 odd miles long and is described as going through populated areas the entire way. Even if there aren’t very many settlements large enough to show on an overview map, there is still plently of room for a large rural population.
Anyone who’s interested in ME geography should hie themselves to a bookstore to buy Karen Wynn Fonstad’s Atlas of Middle Earth. It doesn’t discuss population much, but it gives a terrifically detailed overview of the various stages of ME before LOTR. I found a nice segway into the Silmarillion; in fact, I’d recommend getting the Atlas before taking that difficult but tremondously rewarding work.
