After its collapse, much of Eriador became wild; regions such as Minhiriath, on the coast south of the River Baranduin (Brandywine), were abandoned. The maps are treated as if they are of real landscapes, drawn according to the rules of a real atlas.

Tolkien considered middangeard to be "the abiding place of men", [T 6] the physical world in which Man lives out his life and destiny, as opposed to the unseen worlds above and below it, namely Heaven and Hell. The capitalized term "Man" (plural "Men") is used as a gender-neutral racial description, to distinguish humans from the other human-like races of Middle-earth. Men were "the Secondborn" of the Children of Ilúvatar: they awoke in Middle-earth much later than the Elves. All maps are based on the The Atlas of Middle-earth from Karen Wynn Fonstad but extended with own ideas and small changes based on different other official maps. There are way more Ages mentioned by Tolkien but most of them are having very less data to show like 'Years of the Trees' or the 'Forth Age'.

The term is equivalent to the Miðgarðr of Norse mythology and Middangeard in Old English works, including Beowulf.

At the end of the First Age, the Western part of Middle-earth, Beleriand, was drowned in the War of Wrath. Other: Mithril · The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game · The Fellowship of the Ring (novel) · Works inspired by J. It was published in 1981, following Tolkien's major works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. South from there is the ancient land of Hollin, once the elvish land of Eregion, where the Rings of Power were forged. On the hills of the Trollshaws were shallow caves, such as the Troll’s Cave, and Mannish castles and towers.At the end of the Third Age, much of the northwest of Middle-earth is wild, with traces here and there of ruined cities and fortresses from earlier civilisations among the mountains, rivers, forests, hills, plains and marshes. The Dwarves were created by the Vala Aulë, before the Firstborn awoke due to his impatience for the arrival of the children of Ilúvatar to teach and to cherish. The Silmarils were recovered at a terrible cost, as Beleriand itself was broken and began to sink under the sea.