Well, Tolkien said that Arda was our world, and that LotR happened about 6,000 years ago. He also said that Hobbiton and Rivendell were on the same latitude as Oxford, so there ya go [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]. A while back, on one of the LotR newsgroups, I tried to work out how the subsequent Ages ended.began, as Tolkien said that we are in the 6th or 7th Age (and thta they are getting shorter too). Seeing as (a) he was a devout Christian, and, (b) wanted to create a mythology for England, which would mesh with Christianity, it would make sense if Noah's Flood ended one of the post-LotR Ages. This could change Middle-earth's surface enough to look like it currently does [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img].
Harad is definately Africa etc. IMHO, so RHun would be Asia, Fornost (I'm not sure if that's its name, could be Lossarnach, (don't have map to hand) I'm reffering to that bit of land that arcs north) would be Scandanaveia, and so the Undiscovered Lands would be the Americas (not Valinor, as, as had been said, they are out of reach by 'conventional' travel).
Tolkien also said that Numenor was his Atlantis, and was inspired by a dream he frequently had of a Great Wave drowining the world (a dream some of his children also had repeatedly, though they did not know they shared the dream for many years. Strange [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img].).
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