The Eastern continent, I would guess, is Middle-Earth. In the process of the Removal of Valinor, two things apparently happened: the Undying Land was removed to some other dimension if you like, and the Earth was bent. Whereas before it was just a huge land, flat and straight from end to end, it was warped into the globular shape that we now know it as, so that there is no physical escape from it except outwards, into Menel.
If I can I might just borrow this thread to raise something I’ve always wondered about. Asia (East of Rhun, probably including Australia to the South somewhat), Europe and the Arctic (the ‘North-West’) and Africa (South of Harad) are all present in Middle Earth. What about the New World? Did it just rise out of the sea? It seems to be, actually, in a good position for it to be the Undying Lands; obviously it wasn’t though… interesting anyway.
Tolkien made his Arda close enough to the real Earth as to make it fit into the history, of course in a mythical sense, and development of the world. The Pacific Ocean, if you look on a map of the world, covers nearly half of the Earth’s circumfrence, making it close to the Ekkaia (Encircling Sea); the Atlantic, West of Middle Earth (Europe/Asia/Africa) is Beleguer. The seas fit too. The Americas stuff it all up a bit though.
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