Demographic Features of ME

[The Witch-King of Angmar]

Hi.

Can anybody tell me something about the demographic features of Middle-Earth? What is the population density or the number of inhabitants(I know that Tolkien isn't exact here, but ME alwas seemed so vast and empty to me with only a few islands inhabitet by people[probably also about First and Second Age?]), how far is it from Hobbiton to Minas Tirith, as the crow flies and so on?

For the distances I could as well read Fonstad's Book, but I would like to know, if there are any other sources. Thanks a lot.

[Encaitare]

how far is it from Hobbiton to Minas Tirith, as the crow flies and so on?

You could look at the maps in the book and use the scale there if you really want to figure it out.

[littlemanpoet]

Middle Earth at the end of the Third Age was largely uninhabited.

The ravages of the Witch King's rule still held effect in Eriador, and the general ravages of orcs had a deleterious effect on the economy generally. Just think of the Dark Ages during the Viking era, only the Vikings never stop raiding; the only thing holding them back in the north and west are the Dunedain. Meanwhile, the Elves and Dwarves keep pretty much to themselves.

Gondor suffered repeatedly from onslaughts by the Kingdoms from the East and South. Rohan was an agrarian society, so the population there may have been the greatest per square mile, but still quite thin by modern standards.

By far the densest population was probably the Shire and Bree, outside of a few fortress cities like Minas Tirith and the rather prosperous region of Esgaroth and Dale, now that Smaug was gone. Hope that helps.

[Orophin]

Well it depends a lot on what time period because of wars etc, but a good source it this book ive seen called the atlas for middle earth. It has detaled maps ans keys and what not. Good stuff really.

[luthien-elvenprincess]

I agree with Orophin, you definetely need to see a book entitled The Atlas of Middle-Earth. This book will answer all your questions listed here plus more!

[A_Brandybuck]

The Atlas of Fonstad is a very good book for discovering Middle-earth, but it doesn't include all things. Of course, it cannot show every thing of middle-earth, because Tolkien told us not every thing. ;-)
The following quote shows us two facts, which are not much known, because it is the only mentions of it (I think).

Originally Posted by UT

The origin of the name Gwathló must be sought in history. In the time of the War of the Ring the lands were still in places well-wooded, especially in Minhiriath and in the south-east of Enedwaith; but most of the plains were grassland. Since the Great Plague of the year 1636 of the Third Age Minhiriath had been almost entirely deserted, though a few secretive hunter-folk lived in the woods. In Enedwaith the remnants of the Dunlendings lived in the east in the foothills of the Misty Mountains; and a fairly numerous but barbarous fisher-folk dwelt between the mouths of the Gwathló and the Angren (Isen).

There are a secret hunter-folk, which have outlasted the Great Plague and lives still in the woods of Minhiriath. Also is there a barbarous fisher-folk dwelling between the mouths of both rivers.
Both folks are not mentioned (correct me if I am wrong) in the Atlas, save a little entry in the population map concerning the fisher-folk. But it is rather unclear, whether this entry is for the Second or the Third Age. The hunter-folk was totally peculated.
The Lossoth are also barely mentioned in the Atlas, and not in the population map. There is, I think, one only mention of the Lossoth as "Snowmen" living in the northern regions of Eriador.
The dwellings of the Dunedain of the North are understandably also not mapped, beacuse of not knowing exactly, where they are.
This might be a reason, why Fonstad didn't include the hunter-folk, but it is not understandably in the case of the Lossoth. We know at least, that they live near the Ice Bay, because of the fate of Arvedui, last King of Arnor.

But I repeat one time: Great Atlas.

[Man-of-the-Wold]

The reality is that even by the standards of the early middle ages in Europe, Middle-Earth contained next to nobody.

All the Free People combined in the area shown in the LotR map probably amounted to little more than half of a million. The Orcs and other inherent baddies probably come out to a 100,000 more, but they tended to be very concentrated. So, concentrated in fact, that they should not have been able to feed themselves, while the scarcity of population elsewhere defies the ability for any commerce or civilization to have been maintained. But, of course, they weren't all like us or our ancestors.

In the Second Age, there were certainly still many more Elves, and relatively even more Dwarves, about, and in Rhovanian and Eriador, even more Men probably, than one finds toward the end of the Third Age.

At the End of the Third Age, Eriador has been seriously depopulated (except for the Shire, Bree-land and Rivendell) by Wars, Plague, and extreme weather events. The same holds true of Rhovanion, and Gondor to a much lesser degree.

Bree & environs are a regular metropolis at 15,000 tops, but there are perhaps more Men about elsewhere than meets the eye. In addition to the Elves of Lindon, and more generally the Dwarves of Ered Luin, and those traversing there and back, the Hobbits have contact with "Big People," and not just from Bree, with which direct contact is rare, though it be only a day's ride away.

I imagine that Eriador has scattered networks of hamlets and micro-villages of people who made themselves not easy to find; they interacted with one another, and they traded foodstuff with the Hobbits, and like them, with Elves, Rangers and Dwarves. They were protected by the Rangers and so forth, too. Remember the Trolls of The Hobbit had had settlements to prey on, and the Elves of Rivendell don't seem to have farmed themselves or have regularly transacted as far away as Bree. Some of these may have been lower-class Dunedain or remnants of Edain-derived Northmen from the Second Age.

Elsewhere, the scattered populations would have been of more Dunlendish extraction, like the Breelanders, and some may be thought to have survived Northwest of or South of the Shire, along the coasts, or in the valleys of the Isen and Adorn, or areas west from there toward Tharbad, from which the fugitives in Bree likely came as a result of Saruman's expanding local hegemony.

In the time of Thorin & Co., East-West trade had otherwise ground to a halt, but one might assume that then and for sometime longer, Tharbad remained significant, like Bree, and that North-South commerce continued, and was the source of Bilbo's more exotic pantry.

By the time of the War of the Rings, East-West trade by the Dwarves and others was going decently, but Saruman and Mordor had caused North-South economies and communities whether in Eriador or along the Anduin (per Boromir) to wither.

But across all of Eriador, including Dunland & western Enedwaith, probably fewer than 30,000 lesser Men lived in an area the size of France and Britain. The Lossoth, the Dunedain, and the Elves of Rivendell & Lindon, each, would not likely have filled a large American High School, and were possibly numbered only in the hundreds.

The Shire with as many as 40,000 or more was far and away the most populous single community, followed by Bree and by the Dwarves of the Ered Luin (south, traditionally, and north, Thorin's old mines) with a few thousand.

The upper vales of the Anduin and the River Running had thousands of Northmen. At times in the 2nd and 3rd Ages these Men had been substantially more numerous, to be sure, but were increasing again by the end of the Third Age, in large part do to Gandalf's and Bilbo's efforts.

Wilderland also contained several thousand Elves (Lorien/Mirkwood) and Dwarves (Erebor/Iron Hills...) and thousands more of mountain, forest and swamp orcs

Around Rhun were realms of Men (some good, many though corrupted and much more numerous than their Northmen adversaries to the west), and nearer to Mordor in Nurnen, Khand and Near Harad, were enslaved or allied peoples in the 10,000s. Sauron's ultimate strength were the human realms near and far with populations in the 100,000s or millions that he could bring to bear, along with 10,000s of less useful common orcs in Mordor, whose sustenance is at least explained by the forced production out of Nurnen.

The Rohirrim proper amounted to a good 50,000. Gondor itself was the only real bulwark of population available to the West, with probably a good 200,000 or more. These had relatively little Dunedain ancestory, except around Minas Tirith, elsewhere along the (west side of the) Anduin, and in special places such as Dol Amroth.

These Gondorians were largely of Southman (Dunlendish/Dunharrow-like) extraction, perhaps distantly related to the Halethrim. They also tended to live simple lives in their own communities, and were not easily marshalled for centralized purposes. The Stewards had knitted together a stronger society without the caste-like divide between Dunedain and other men. They were now more or less all Men of Gondor, even if the lords and others tended to have truly nobler ancestory.

So, even if Gondor was a more stable and strong society in many ways, it was not as militarily potent, having become a loose confederation of feudal-like fiefs, without the strong unifying force of a Dunedain King or large Dunedain upper-class (or largely Dunedain population in the eastern lowlands of Gondor) that could shoulder much of the military burden and organzation. Strategically, Gondor could thus be effectively divided by threats of maritime invasions, however, readily they might be countered. Clearly, Prince of Amroth found a way to bring his best land forces to Minas Tirith.

One is thus left wondering what it was that Denethor is said to have achieved in terms of preparations for the big war, aside from forays in Ithilien and organization around Pelennor. His failure to have arranged for more resources to be deployed eastward, while better gauging and more rationally defending against the inevitable danger from Umbar, leaves one a little more willing to accept the interpretation of him in the Films.

Finally, although Fonstad may fail to show the Lossoth on most maps, she does represent areas of Dunlenders along the coast between Gwathlo and Isen, which could have been shown here or there or anywhere, as well. She also shades some areas south of the Adorn/Isen as being Druedain. And in the Battle of the Fords of Isen it is indicated that some such cave dwellers helped rout certain Orc parties, and there might have been a few thousand in the area of Andrast and the far western White Mountains, in addtion to what should only be several hundred of Ghan-Buri-Ghan's people in Druadan Forest to the east.

[A_Brandybuck]

Originally Posted by Man-of-the-Wold

Finally, although Fonstad may fail to show the Lossoth on most maps, she does represent areas of Dunlenders along the coast between Gwathlo and Isen, which could have been shown here or there or anywhere, as well.

I tend towards the opinion, that Fonstad meant with that little stripe not the Dunlendings, but that numerous, but barbarious fisher-folk, which is named in the quote I posted above.

I personally think, that the most interesting question is, how many Dunedain of the North still live in the old regions of Arnor and its following states? I never have found a number save the hint, which Halbard gave, that he could gather in haste 30 Rangers. Any thoughts or already existings threads?

[Man-of-the-Wold]

I tend towards the opinion, that Fonstad meant with that little stripe not the Dunlendings, but that numerous, but barbarious fisher-folk, which is named in the quote I posted above.

I personally think, that the most interesting question is, how many Dunedain of the North still live in the old regions of Arnor and its following states? I never have found a number save the hint, which Halbard gave, that he could gather in haste 30 Rangers. Any thoughts or already existings threads?

Oh, I agree that Fonstad is depicting the barbarous fisher-folk, as a I think referenced in Unfinished Tales, but correctly I believe, she shades them as being/speaking Dunlendish. I'm not sure about the validity of it at the End of the Third Age, per se, as opposed to other times or places. And, she's on a little shakier ground indicating such widespread Drùedain settlement to the south in Andrast.

Except for, of course, the Dùnedain and the Lossoth, as well as some Adûnaic groups north of the East-West road at one time, the Southmen/Dunlendish/Halethrim are the origins of all other men in Eriador. We really, though, have no idea about the origins of the evil Hill-men of Rhudaur. Probably Dunlendish, again, or perhaps, offshoot remnants of the bad Easterlings from the First Age.

The question of the Dùnedain at the end of the Third Age is a recurring one. The 30 gathered in haste may be taken as a select subset of the Men of prime warrior age. Considering that a couple times as many may not have been able to gathered---I like to think they others were business in the Misty Mountains during the WofR, given the lack of protect around Bree/Shre---then with women, children, older men and so forth, you are still only at several hundred, but I like to assume a good 1,000, which lived at time in the area of The Angle, and I'd assume around Lake Evendim and the North Downs.