Why was Eriador so depopulated? 

Good point, but it absolutely falls in that area that Tolkien had a blindspot for. His world is one of decay and loss inherently, he romanticizes the past because the past was just better

For the whole thing to make sense, there has to be some shift in climate. Be that of natural or supernatural causes. Not just for the lack of forest, but also for the lack of men - if the land was once fertile enough to support a bustling civilization, that would be a huge incentive for people to move in to the area. Historically, you don't see areas empty of people for extended periods unless that region becomes inhospitable. There's always hunter-gatherers, herders, or farmers who have population surplus and an expansive culture. But at least the Shire is a fertile place.

I think somewhere in Appendix A it does say that the climate of Eriador worsened. Plus, their probably were some forests in Eriador that just weren't marked on the map.

Iirc diverse forests are incredibly slow at reclaiming land on their own, and sometimes never do. The Pennine moorlands of northern England were likely deforested in the Neolithic or Bronze Age and never recovered despite not being used for agriculture. It seems areas prone to cold snaps like highlands or far northern locations seem to have even more problems with it, which could explain Eriador's relatively barren ecosystem

Maybe being on the west side of a continent and west of some big mountains it's dry like the American southwest. Stuck in the rain shadow of the Misty Mountains.

But still, evil men exist in that world and evil energies should not stop them from multiplying at a rate of dubbling the population every 35 years as real people under good conditions do.

Agreed 100% though its implied that even Mordor itself became very different and quite quickly with the elimination of genuine supernatural evil.

Invasions of Orcs into Eriador are noted as significant event in the timeline: “c. 2480 Orcs begin to make secret strongholds in the Misty Mountains so as to bar all the passes into Eriador. Sauron begins to people Moria with his creatures.” … 2740 Orcs renew their invasions of Eriador. 2747 Bandobras Took defeats an Orc-band in the Northfarthing. 2758 Rohan attacked from west and east and overrun. Gondor attacked by fleets of the Corsairs. Helm of Rohan takes refuge in Helm’s Deep. Wulf seizes Edoras. 2758-9: The Long Winter follows. Great suffering and loss of life in Eriador and Rohan. Gandalf comes to the aid of the Shire-folk. … 2911 The Fell Winter. The Baranduin and other rivers are frozen. White Wolves invade Eriador from the North. 2912 Great floods devastate Enedwaith and Minhiriath. Tharbad is ruined and deserted.” So…we have a lot of events across different periods, Rangers and their Chieftains also almost regularly died to fight dark creatures, Arador was slain by Trolls, so their raiding is not so rare, and we know that Trolls can roam fairly wide: “The lands ahead were empty of all save birds and beasts, unfriendly places deserted by all the races of the world. Rangers passed at times beyond the hills, but they were few and did not stay. Other wanderers were rare, and of evil sort: trolls might stray down at times out of the northern valleys of the Misty Mountains. Only on the Road would travellers be found, most often dwarves, hurrying along on business of their own, and with no help and few words to spare for strangers.” Dunedain are longlived so their population growth is smaller than among normal peoples, the Hobbits increase in numbers obviously. There are also obviously places which are not really hospitable, swampy grounds, the area near Tharbad around river Gwathlo was a vast area of marshlands originally, and with the ruin of the numenorean infrastructure and drainage works, it would return to natural state, huge swamps are not good for large population. And even near Bree there are some areas that are not fitting: “The land had been falling steadily, ever since they turned aside from the Road, and they now entered a wide flat expanse of country, much more difficult to manage. They were far beyond the borders of the Bree-land, out in the pathless wilderness, and drawing near to the Midge-water Marshes. The ground now became damp, and in places boggy and here and there they came upon pools, and wide stretches of reeds and rushes filled with the warbling of little hidden birds. They had to pick their way carefully to keep both dry-footed and on their proper course. At first they made fare progress, but as they went on, their passage became slower and more dangerous. The marshes were bewildering and treacherous, and there was no permanent trail even for Rangers to find through their shifting quagmires. The flies began to torment them, and the air was full of clouds of tiny midges that crept up their sleeves and breeches and into their hair. ‘I am being eaten alive!’ cried Pippin. ‘Midgewater! There are more midges than water!’ ‘What do they live on when they can’t get hobbit?’ asked Sam, scratching his neck. They spent a miserable day in this lonely and unpleasant country. Their camping-place was damp, cold, and uncomfortable; and the biting insects would not let them sleep. There were also abominable creatures haunting the reeds and tussocks that from the sound of them were evil relatives of the cricket. There were thousands of them, and they squeaked all round, neek-breek, breek-neek, unceasingly all the night, until the hobbits were nearly frantic. The next day, the fourth, was little better, and the night almost as comfortless. Though the Neekerbreekers (as Sam called them) had been left behind, the midges still pursued them.” One cannot leave out the possible ecological reasons, while the Enedwaith and Minhiriath forests were logged by the Numenoreans that it destroyed the area for a long time, by the time of War of the Ring the land was still fairly wooded in places, but those great areas that were thoroughly destroyed and turned into grasslands would be more like central/eastern Enedwaith, so closer to the foothills and so Dunland and further towards Gwathlo as I said lots of marshes, whole large wetlands that would grow after the floods and with the numenorean works of engineering falling into disrepair swamps do not aid in resettling the land one also mention of the changing of conditions during time of Arnor and Angmar war, like “fled west and south, because of the wars, and the dread of Angmar, and because the land and clime of Eriador, especially in the east, worsened and became unfriendly.” So this was even long before all those other events listed above. Vale of Anduin sees some resettling and colonization of woodmen, though it also saw the periods when peopel escaped from the northern parts of Rhovanion, Hobbit mentions dragons driving men away in the past (well who would want to have those as neighbors :)?).

I like this idea. The witch king or sauron cursed the people and the land, from the old forest to the coast it was uninhabitable. The old forest (and Bombadil?) by their ancient and impervious nature bounded the cursed area? Creating a safe haven Gandolph and the rangers were aware of, but few others? Tolkien alluded to all of this. Maybe a nugget of world building he didn't get to. Or thought it was understood in sub-text. Great insight.

@@jrthurman7237 there might be something to it...we are told that as Angmar's influence grew there were some changes: "A great host came out of Angmar in 1409, and crossing the river entered Cardolan and surrounded Weathertop. The Dúnedain were defeated and Arveleg was slain. The Tower of Amon Sûl was burned and razed; but the palantír was saved and carried back in retreat to Fornost, Rhudaur was occupied by evil Men subject to Angmar, and the Dúnedain that remained there were slain or fled west. Cardolan was ravaged. Araphor son of Arveleg was not yet full-grown, but he was valiant, and with aid from Círdan he repelled the enemy from Fornost and the North Downs. A remnant of the faithful among the Dúnedain of Cardolan also held out in Tyrn Gorthad (the Barrow-downs), or took refuge in the Forest behind. It is said that Angmar was for a time subdued by the Elvenfolk coming from Lindon; and from Rivendell, for Elrond brought help over the Mountains out of Lórien. It was at this time that the Stoors that had dwelt in the Angle (between Hoarwell and Loudwater) fled west and south, because of the wars, and the dread of Angmar, and because the land and clime of Eriador, especially in the east, worsened and became unfriendly. Some returned to Wilderland, and dwelt beside the Gladden, becoming a riverside people of fishers." The Return of the King, LoTR Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers: Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur: The North-kingdom and the Dúnedain So,......worsening climate, maybe through some indirect evil magic influence? Witch-king is rumored to be able to "make frost or thaw at will" according to Lossoth people.

Also the fires that sauron caused during the second age there. We know that the brown lands south of mirkwood suffered a similar fate and were not able to support trees thousands of years after it, so while enedwaith and minhiriath already support woodland and patches of forest, they might still be too infertile for farming

I also wonder if maybe Gandalf or even Radagast had asked the Rangers to discourage settlement. This would have had the benefit of providing a buffer zone for Hobbiton and letting the wilderness lie fallow to regenerate. It's questions and like these that make productions like the Rings of Power legitimate and worthwhile, albeit imperfect. I also think the harsh criticism it has garnered does a disservice to Tolkien and something he hoped to accomplish with his legendarium

That's definitely an interesting idea. We know lands could be damaged and corrupted. Although obviously not to the same extent as places like Mirkwood or Mordor, perhaps the land suffered from minor afflictions like lower fertility or more aggressive fauna.

It would make sense the earth was poisoned with evil and thus nothing really grew in a lot of areas, inhibating agriculture and thus population grow and expansion. In the Silmarillion it's said that the evil of Morgoth tainted the earth so why not would Sauron or the Witch King do the same in a smaller scale right? Could be.

Impotence curse.

Building on that point, we know that Eriador wasn't populated by Men, Elves, or Dwarves. It doesn't necessarily follow that it was entirely depopulated. We know that the Misty Mountains were home to colonies of Orcs, for example. One thing that has to always be kept in mind with LOTR is that the books were written from the perspective of the Hobbits, and that they are not necessarily reliable (or, more accurately, the facts are true but they aren't ALL the facts, as "Unfinished Tales" and some others make clear). It's entirely plausible that the area was occupied by nomadic or semi-nomadic populations of Orcs and Trolls. Typically yes, good farmland would be re-occupied and developed, driving the nomadic peoples off that land. But that's human-on-human conflict. I can easily see a population of Orcs (especially if you include wargs) keeping a significant amount of territory free of human, elven, and dwarven settlements. This is especially true if they established their domain early after the fall of the various kingdoms, as the populations of their enemies would be reduced.

@@jamesverhoff1899 This doesn't even have to be speculated, for the final centuries of the Third Age. We know that 270 years before the War of the Ring, orcs invaded Eriador from the Misty Mountains and reached as far as the Shire before being stopped. After that, orcs and trolls continued to pose a threat. Three of the last four Chieftains of the Dunedain died violently, two recorded as being at the hands of orcs and trolls, including Aragorn's father.

the troll's cave was located alongside the great east-west road though, and iirc it is implied they've been waylaying travellers along said road.

Yeah. But those travellers had to travel between more than Blue Mountains and Iron Hills... 😂 Isolated farms like Beorn and his folk and what we see in Children of Hurin after Morgoth wins the 5th battle is the only thing that makes sense. Tolkien says there are lots of hobbits roaming eriador outside the shire. Same seems to go for wandering elven bands and dwarven craftsmen/merchants.

Great Comment

I used to imagine myself sitting in a big chair in front of a blazing fire in my cozy Hobbit-hole. Still do :)

Go to North Yorkshire or any moor in the UK.

Place is crawling with moor trolls. Those guys are worse than the local bears that sleep underneath their caves.

That is absolutely 100% true of Arnor / Arthedain, and why Angmar was a focus of Sauron's will. A good question is if Sauron bothered with post-Arthedain attempts at civilisation here. I'd mentioned Tharbad. Did Sauron have something to do with its flood? or did his agents just keep the Rangers distracted so they couldn't help

On the opposite note, it's good that despite his acknowledgement of the flaw, he still came up with an in universe explanation. A lot of people only do one of these.

Thanks. I think it's important to be able to acknowledge flaws, even in the things that we love.

Well said!

Amen. I feel uneasy in a room where every single person is in agreement. There should be at least some dissension and discussion. Makes things more interesting if nothing else.

@@samadams2203 I’d like to point out everyone in this comment section is agreeing. So, I fully disagree. I hate it when there is even the smallest variation of opinion amongst a group I witness. Take that.

The Forsaken Inn.

Yep, the Forsaken Inn. Unfortunately, we don't know whether it was inhabited or not.

@DarthGandalfYT Apparently, there are unpublished writings that state that Thorin and company find it abandoned on their eastward travels to Erebor.

Forsaken Inn seems a clear sign of how dangerous the Middle World is. It could very well be a result of someone who wanted to expand beyond the vicinity of Bree.

​@@DarthGandalfYT Forsaken means the same as abandoned. My guess is that it had been a hostel for travellers (like The Prancing Pony) for centuries but eventually fell into ruin.

True thought! The stronghold of Mount Gundabad wasn’t far away. That’s why the Rangers were constantly hunting down raiding parties!

iirc it is a days ride between the barrow downs and Bree. :) that's probably the peril aragorn meant. but since the shire records an invasion by orcs in TA 2747, well after the collapse of the northern kingdoms, as well as attacks by huge packs of wolves in during the fell winter of TA 2911, you can easily make an argument for there being plenty of dangerous things wandering the wilderness. it would explain why the Rangers are always so busy.

Yes. The orcs won the war against Arnor after all

He meant the Barrow Downs

But that doesnt answer the question? Why arent there more rangers? The cossacs where always in danger of tatar raids or even armies and yet it took them only a few centuries to conquer the step, and they where hardy warrior but no match for men with the skill and expierience of rangers who live for over a 100 rather than a normal humans 60.

Merp (middle Earth roleplay), the old dnd style game set in middle earth, had a full book dedicated to adventures in Tharbad. Merp has a shitton of fanfiction (it's from the wild west of tabletop RPGs: the 80s) but if you like the place so much you may enjoy the read. "Thieves of Tharbad" I think it was called. You can find it as a free pdf fairly easily as it's basically "abandonware", so to speak

@@jamaigar Thanks. I might look into that. I know the latest edition of The One Ring TTRPG also has Tharbad as a potential adventuring location.

​@PeculiarNotions yeah the One Ring has a great setting fir Tharbad

"impotence spirits" would definitely keep the population from expanding.

Impotence spirits? Worst thing that can happen to you during a good Angbang

Impotence spirits!? So much meaning gets lost in a comments section. Is that an autocorrect attack, or did I miss something? Is that what happened to the dwarves in the fourth age?

Yeah, Im not messing with Impotence Spirits. Now Impotant Spirits arent a problem. After all they're impotent. But Impotence Spirits, no thank you.

I gave this reply to another commenter, so I will repeat it to you as well. ---------------- For a bit of population context in Europe. During the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714 A.D) was the first war in western Europe that saw an army reach over 100 thousand men since Julius Caesar conquered Gaul (58-50 B.C) And London was the first city in Europe to reach 1 million inhabitants in the year 1800 A.D, which the ancient city of Rome had reached in 133 B.C. And when you look to the city of Rome itself. Having reached as much as 1 million people, to then suffer a series of calamities, falling down to just 30 thousand people. And it took the city of Rome 2000 years to regain its population. Reading first-hand accounts of people travelling to Rome during the Early and the High Middle Ages... has this really strange feeling to it. The seat of the Church being set in a city that was dominated by century old ruins. The term "The Dark Ages" has been fighting words for a long time. But the reality of the time was that it would feel post-apocalyptic. Cities that had been large metropolises in the days of the Roman Empire, would in many cases be nothing but crumbling ruins of an advanced bygone era. And you have to remember that the art of Roman concrete was entirely forgotten. Which meant the people of Medieval Europe would be covered by buildings that were built with technology that they could not replicate. In many ways, it would be like our modern world collapsing, and then for centuries, people would look at the large steel buildings, while they themselves having no idea how to make it. And, if you read about English politics during the Napoleonic Era. You find that there were some members of Parliament with an extreme interesting situation... where they had no constituency. Because there had been no update to fix representation with population for a very very long time. Which meant, they sat and represented Counties that used to exist hundreds of years ago, but the lands that made up that constituency had been entirely abandoned for a very very long time. Which created this really strange situation in Parliament.

@@Hugebull roman concrete was lost long before the fall of rome because it was unecconomcial to make. the romans switched to brick and stone because concrete was a vanity material. and the post-romans built plenty of large buildings themselves often more complex than anything the romans built. the dark ages is a charged term because it is inaccurate. technology did surpass the romans (infact it advanced faster after the romans fall), life got expontially better for everyone. Rome was stagnant and the "dark ages" ended that stagnancy mostly for the better. (also measuring things purely by the size of cities is misleading. while cities were much smaller overall population size recovered and became larger, by 1000 ad the population was signifcantly larger. measuring army size is also unhelpful as they have factors other than population that affect them)

@@KaiserlicheKonigliche "Nuh-uh" is not a valid contribution to a conversation. The ancient capital of the greatest Empire known to their history, is depopulated and in ruins. A population of 1 million, then a population of 30 thousand. It would be like the New York metropolitan area going from 24 million people, down to 700 thousand people. That would strike you hard with a deep apocalyptic feel. Seeing decrepit skyscrapers and crumbling infrastructure all over the place. And this would be the seat of the UN. If this had been the case, you would instinctively know that the apocalypse has struck. Western Europe and North Africa was covered in ancient ruins from an Empire that had collapsed generations ago. From the north, the Pagan Norsemen came, raiding and colonizing the coast. And to the south there was a massive foreign Empire that ruled most of Hispania. And at the same time, they are dismantling the Eastern Roman Empire. The last holdout and remnant of the ancient glorious Empire. --------- You may sit there as an old Anglo-Saxon lord in England. You your hand you hold a book about Caesar and his conquest of England. You read about an elephant, an animal you have never seen, you have no idea how it looks like. You read about the expansions and the building of entirely new cities. About public works projects hiring thousands upon thousands of workers. About the construction of roads and bridges. About a massive stone wall that was built far to the north to keep the Picts out. Now, those days of old are gone. The Empire has long since disappeared. The Legions they provided to keep your lands safe, have been gone for hundreds of years. You think back to that time when you visited Rome in your youth, and you remember how the endless sea of broken houses made you feel. To the north in Northumbria and beyond, the Norsemen from across the ocean have taken over. They have colonized the lands and they have fully established themselves with their own rules and laws and society. And they want more. You hear stories from the Eastern Empire. Stories of disarray. Their armies defeated in the field, now paying tribute to lesser men. And you read about desperate guerilla warfare going on in the mountains of northern Spain against overwhelming forces. ------------- Does this not sound dark? Does this not sound apocalyptic? Of course Tolkien claimed to hate allegory, but it would be nonsensical to not realize the connections between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Western Roman Empire to that of Gondor and Arnor. And then looking at things like the "Fall of Gondolin" and the final fall of Constantinople. Where, in essence, the Medieval Christians came up against the enormous wall-breaking cannons of the Turks. And of course the connection between the Siege of Vienna in 1683 A.D, to that of the Siege of Gondor in TA 3019. -------------------- And when it comes to the size of armies. Again, you need to go more than a "Nuh-uh". Looking at the size of pre-industrial armies in Europe is a pretty good way to confirm the agriculture of an area. While the alliance of England, Holland, and Prussia, could put 100 thousand men together in the Low Countries. While France did the same on their side. At the same time, they could only put together armies of a few thousand in Spain.

@@Hugebull but i didn't just go "nuh-uh" to charracterise my argument as that is frankly baffeling and puts me off even responding to you as you are clearly acting in bad faith, but I'll do so regardless i pointed out that roman concrete was a lost technology before the fall and was not lost because of the fall but because it was not an economical building material. and i pointed out the post-romans had large buildings too, they would have been impressed certainly but my point was in this part is that it wouldn't have been like walking through ruins of stuff you can't make but walking through things similar to what you can make but out of weird materials. I also pointed out that the population increased after the fall of the empire, to counter your population figures and the whole 'dark ages are fighting words... But' because it should be fighting words. same goes for me pointing out tech surpassed the romans. the dark ages were called that because of the false idea that that advancement 'went backwards' after the fall of the empire when the opposite infact happend. and no the size of armies is not strictly related to agriculture, like i pointed out the population increased. what i didn't mention was it happened as a dirrect result of improved agriculture this is undisputed facts. No historian argues that agriculture was worse in the middle ages than in roman times, there is too much evidence against that idea, too much eviedence they had better agriculture (larger overall population, better diets of even the lowest classes, etc). the size of armies is determined by numerous factors: logistics, strategy, tactics, etc. logistics being more than just 'how much resources can we make' but also 'how many can we organise to take with us', 'how many can we protect' etc. medieval warfare had small armies in part because the dominant military ideology was one of long attritional warfare where pitched battles was to be avoided. there is also aspects like less beurocracy (which is needed for a large logistics chain) Also I never gave a toss about "it would feel post-apocalyptic" notise i didn't mention anything about those 'feelings' in my reply. my objection is the analogies and the implication that dark ages is accurate. If i were to comment on it, i would say it would feel post-post-apocalyptic, yes there are ruins of the old civilisation, but it wasn't exactly an empty wasteland either, civillisation was booming and blooming. the fall of the empire solidfied the start of the recovery from the apocalypse.

@@KaiserlicheKonigliche There we go, that's a better comment. I have already given examples of places that were entirely depopulated in England into the 1800s. And for when cities could once more grow to the size as they could during the Roman Era. The logistics and the ability to pay and feed the great army of Marlborough, was done entirely by a small group of men. But such numbers could only be held together in places that had the local agricultural production to keep the army fed. If England during the Viking Age could have maintained just 1/20th of the force, then no Norsemen could ever have landed. Arnor was in decline for a long time. Now, the region has degraded to such a point that it cannot stand back up on its own. Taking what happened with the Western Roman Empire to an extreme. I do not subscribe to the idea of the "Dark Ages." I am sorry if you misunderstood. I was simply laying out some of the broad strokes that were going on during that era that would make one call it as such. But, if you go to Europe between, around, 500 A.D. And 750 A.D. So in between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the birth of Charlemagne. You would see a broken world. And 250 years is a pretty long time. (Unless you believe in the conquests of King Arthur, but that's a different thing altogether, as it is a very different tale of Europe for that time). Arnor is just taking Europe after the fall of Rome, and fiddling with it for a fantasy world. Of course Europe rose again. And so did Arnor. The ability to do logistics is a part of the whole. When you look at Classical warfare, with how they would utilize massive works to conquer cities. Or just tale a look at Caesar's conquest of Alsia. This was done in a way that the peoples of the early Middle Ages could only dream of doing. In your books you would read about armies of 100 thousand strong. Something you can't even dream of. You read of Greek Fire. You read of Archimedes and his Heat Ray. You read about the wide deployments of Roman siege engines. And public projects. The building of large and impressive Cathedrals did not start until the 900s. Which is over 400 years since the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Westminster Abbey was started in 960. Strasbourg Cathedral in 1015. Winchester Cathedral in 1079. Chartres Cathedral in 1145. Notre Dame in 1063. Amiens Cathedral in 1220. York Minster in 1230. And with Roman construction. Such as Trajan's Bridge, which was the longest arch bridge for a thousand years. (although it only lasted for 150 years). Or Constantine's Bridge over the Danube. The Romans built absolutely incredible dams. We have the dome of the Pantheon. Which was the largest dome in the world for over 1700 years. We see tunnels, such as the Cocceius Tunnel, which is 1000 meters long. We have outright industry, with things like the Barbegal water mill complex. Yes, by 1000 A.D, one could consider Europe back on track again. But that's half a millennium after the fall of Western Rome. But even then, it was splintered and disunited. Tolkien may have dreamt of a new restored Roman Empire out of the Middle Ages, as a sort of "Mega-Charlemagne Empire", with a united Catholic Europe. But hey.

Yes, the wraiths in hills of Rhudaur was sent there by Angmar to keep it depopulated. ICE should just had the balls to make Eriador more cosmopolitsn than what we see during lotr. I mean there are dwarves in blue mountains. Two elvish realms (Lindon & Imladris). Shire has a postal service, lawyers, fire works and silverware. Bilbo orders childrens toys as far as from Erebor for his birthday. There are humans living in Bree, Dunland, those fishers on the cost and up north in the ice. Orcs, trolls and rangers everywhere and travelling bands of elves and dwarfs & 'more free roaming hobitt bands than the shire suspects' or however Tolkien said it.

Orcs live underground, where they can avoid the terrifying sun. They settled the entire Misty Mountains. Plains would give them panic attacks.

@@rursus8354 ah yes, that's it. Thanks

The easiest thing is to offer them a bonus of 100 acres of land in Arnor if they stay after completion of an engineering job for the Kingdom. Minimum stay of 10 years.

I like the idea of offering incentives to Gondorians to move to Arnor.

While I think that some Gondorian (as well as Rohirrim) colonists will settle in Eriador, I think that there was quite significanp population of wandering hunters, fishermen, herdsmen and even farmers in Eriador. After the kingdom of Arnors will be re-build and the lands become safe enough, those people will start to settle, trade with each other and with colonists and there will be an extremely rapid population grouth, because these people probably had very high birth rate to compensate high mortality and that mortality will be much lower after the re-building of Arnor.

@@user-yy5xs6xj7r Middle Men with no modern form of birth control will probably have large families. This is likely to be offset with high child and maternal mortality. With no elven healers around, even those of Numenorean descent will need to up the birthrate. Human life prior to the 20th century struggled with deaths due to birthing complications. I don't see the start of the Fourth Age being any different.

@@markstott6689 Numenorean and Gondorean medicine was quite advanced, though. At least if compared to the medicine available to the hunters and fishermen of Eriador. So higher birth rates of the peoples of Eriador + more advanced Gondorian medicine will lead to faster populatin growth. That's even not counting better tools (and so more productive agriculture), better trade (and so famines will be less likely), stronger armies (so less orc raids), good government (so less inner feuds) and so on. There were a lot of factors that hinder population growth in Eriador, and many of those can be negated by the restoration of the kingdom of Arnor.

Still, England went from a population of c. 2 million in 1086 to over 40 million by the time Tolkien wrote LotR.

@@bjornh4664 I think my own country of Scotland is a better example, it like Eriador underwent a mass forced loss of population (Highland Clearances in Scotland collapse of the north Kingdom and fall of Arnor in Tolkien) and neither population or land have recovered to this day, leaving areas of once settled and worked land empty. Eriador was also struck by worsening weather ( resulting in legendary cold snaps like the Long Winter ect) and disease with plague that swept through hitting the remaining population hard. Much like early Scotland Eriador was probably also a high fertility, high mortality society given the lack of medicine. In my own country the population grew incredibly slowly from about half a million to a million over a space of about a thousand years, compared to from the 1800's on when it began to double in size over only decades continuing to the present 5 million. But it shows how for long periods you can get this stagnation in population growth.

​@@bjornh4664and what was the population growth from 86 to 1086?

It makes more sense with Elves because of how they reproduce and how much energy it takes, but with men it makes zero sense. Eriador is far from mordor, that's where most men should prefer to live during the third age

The reasons are there in the text, just look closely for them. The lost lands of the north are meant to be mysterious but they are explained. Re-population is not a given.

What "men" exactely should re-populate Eriador? Gondorians didn't have high birth rates (even population of Minas Tirith was slowly declining). Rohirrim tries to expand westwards in the lands between Isen ab=nd Adorn but were stuck in the war with Dunlendings, The men of Rhovannion weren't numerous enough. And the men of Eriador themselves lived in vry hard conditions, so their population growth was wery slow. The idea that population growth in Middle Ages was high is mostly true if we are speaking about periods of relative peace and prosperity, but the situation in many parts is much worse than during IRL Dark Ages, and in such conditions populations may stagnate or thousands of years.

@@user-yy5xs6xj7r The timescales are just too large. We are speaking about thousands of years. Populations bounce back quite fast in real life, even during war times. I know why it is that way, because the world is not supposed to be filled with numerous human kingdoms.

@@fipse yes if there is land to fill human reproductive rates will do it. Great Britain (which Eriador should have the same climate as) was basically deforested and covered in fields 4000 years ago and Middle-Earth has much more advanced material culture and farming - and as you say, look at how Medieval populations sprang back from even worse plagues and wars than Tolkien had. It''s totally unbelievable that humans weren't swarming the place based on history. Ultimately Tolkien was building a christian fantasy world where things decline over time the further you get from creation - hence it was post-apocalyptic - and he needed it to suit the narrative. Its the same as "what was Aragorn's tax policy" - it's not really the point of the story and I can suspend my disbelief (whilst recognizing the issue exists)

Ā the classic give away lands you dont control.

It's a fantasy trope that Tolkien used that I've seen a lot in dnd worlds (I'm unaware if it already existed before Tolkien). Big magic war/cataclysm/events constantly resetting the world, keeping it on similar themes, aesthetics or structure. In dnd makes sense in a practical sense. You wanna keep the "branding" and style of a world that players like while at the same time advancing history so it feels alive and immersive. You can also see this in videogames, like in wow. Tolkien probably was more about the themes and aesthetics for the sake of them

Yup its weird and dumb but its part of the Theme called the Wasteland as in the "health" of the land is tied to the ruler but in this case there is no Ruler so there is no population. But TBF this does happen IRL but for more practical reasons.

Overpopulation happens sometimes. It's actually stated that one of the main reasons why the Eotheod were so eager to move to Rohan was because their own land in the upper Vales of Anduin was becoming overcrowded. Numenor is also described as becoming overcrowded. But yeah, sometimes the whole idea of population growth seems to be blatantly ignored.

Think of all the things they hadn’t got like healthcare or advanced agriculture. Chuck in the malevolence of Sauron and his minions and I should think the attrition rate would severely limit or even prevent population growth.

@@DarthGandalfYT I mean, the human population stayed relatively the same for thousands of years, so it isn't THAT unbelievable.

Yeap, thats my take too. They can be several hundred thousands people living in Eriador but to widely dispersed. Eriador alone can be as big as Europe.

I actually agree with this. The information we have about Eriador comes from in-universe sources, so it's very possible that there were small, remote villages and homesteads that existed out in the wilderness. They were just likely nowhere near as big as Bree or anywhere near as important.

The Hobbit is full of inconsistencies, but to be fair, I just re-read this passage, and everything seems to match up. They stop encountering people once they enter the "Lone-lands", which is never placed on the map, but seems to be the wilderness between Bree and the Mitheithel. They don't encounter the Trolls until they cross the Last Bridge, the same bridge Frodo crosses over 80 years later.

they did say in the ten years he ruled, he ruled like a tyrant that few people liked by the time eldacar brought an army back to gondor, and castamir was a usurper that took the throne of gondor because eldacar was half northmen and not 100% dunedain. now I won't say it is impossible to find a good trait about him, but given what we know, it would be quite difficult. as for the kin-strife, umbar, castamir's sons, the corsairs, etc. that is a very interesting part of the middle earth history nonetheless, and feels like it is not covered enough in comparison to other things in lord of the rings and middle earth.

@@CursedAnqxl Agreed. I think its interesting to think about the context that these characters are in. Like, what teachings were passed down from the Faithful concerning the interactions between the Numenoreans and the other middle-men? Other than lifespan, how much different were the Dunedain and the middle-men during the early Third-Age. Were these differences, as well as the interactions between the Gondorians, the Easternlings, and the Northmen at the time, so influential on Gondorian society and nobility like Castamir that nothing less than pure Numenorean blood was necessary to preserve the line of Kings and thus the prosperity of the realm? Eldacar showed no signs of being any less than his forbearers, so this could very well be primarily an example of human prejudice and folly. As for the events of the Kin-Strife itself, I also wished Tolkien had more time to expand on it. I also think it would have been interesting to see the dynamics that led up to the siege and eventual sacking of Osgiliath, like how much the garrisons at Minas Anor and Minas Ithil did to defend the capital. The Gondorians did fight for five years before the capital was taken, so maybe the two fortresses ran out of resources or were somehow compromised.

I think it's the land between the rivers Loudwater and Hoarwell. If I remember correctly, the Appendix A or B mention that some hobbits briefly lived there, and that most Rangers lived there too.

But places like the Shire and Bree seem quite prosperous. The land is good for farming. With no neighbors, it's difficult to see why such areas wouldn't expand through natural population growth into the uninhabited regions surrounding them. At least along the rivers and old roads.

Bree in the book is not a city, it's a small agricultural town. Ofcourse realistically in times of Arnor Bree should be a bustling fortified city given how important its location is.

But the area nearby didn't stay empty for long

@@Hession0Drasha For a bit of population context in Europe. During the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714 A.D) was the first war in western Europe that saw an army reach over 100 thousand men since Julius Caesar conquered Gaul (58-50 B.C) And London was the first city in Europe to reach 1 million inhabitants in the year 1800 A.D, which the ancient city of Rome had reached in 133 B.C. And when you look to the city of Rome itself. Having reached as much as 1 million people, to then suffer a series of calamities, falling down to just 30 thousand people. And it took the city of Rome 2000 years to regain its population. Reading first-hand accounts of people travelling to Rome during the Early and the High Middle Ages... has this really strange feeling to it. The seat of the Church being set in a city that was dominated by century old ruins. The term "The Dark Ages" has been fighting words for a long time. But the reality of the time was that it would feel post-apocalyptic. Cities that had been large metropolises in the days of the Roman Empire, would in many cases be nothing but crumbling ruins of an advanced bygone era. And you have to remember that the art of Roman concrete was entirely forgotten. Which meant the people of Medieval Europe would be covered by buildings that were built with technology that they could not replicate. In many ways, it would be like our modern world collapsing, and then for centuries, people would look at the large steel buildings, while they themselves having no idea how to make it. And, if you read about English politics during the Napoleonic Era. You find that there were some members of Parliament with an extreme interesting situation... where they had no constituency. Because there had been no update to fix representation with population for a very very long time. Which meant, they sat and represented Counties that used to exist hundreds of years ago, but the lands that made up that constituency had been entirely abandoned for a very very long time. Which created this really strange situation in Parliament.

Then how does Phoenix exist?

I don't think there's a great explanation tbh. There's really no reason the population wasn't expanding, I mean Eriador should have contained a large kingdom by that point already

@@Captain_Insano_nomercy The time of Arvegil and Arveleg ll fascinates me.Somethink must have happend?

@@talesoftheeldar8688 I'm sure Tolkien would have elaborated if he had gotten around to it, but I think he left a few things unattended

Wasn't there the Great Plague in 1636? While Arthedain wasn't as devastated by it as Cardolan, the population still needed some time to recover. Also, the war with Angmar never stopped. There just weren't major invasions and battles during that period because both kingdoms were recovering from the plague, but small war never ceased.

Yes, it is. In Elven languages, the stress falls on the second to last syllable if it is heavy (long vowel or consonant cluster) but if it isn't, then it falls on the 3rd to last syllable. Thus: erIador, isILdur, anCAlima, elenTÀri

I'd say the model that's hard to argue against is the "colonisation further west of the Appalachians" version. European colonization of the Americas took huge resources to get people there in the first place, but once established, it was really hard to keep those people from going beyond the existing settlements to find unclaimed land to farm. Obviously continued immigration played a big role there, but over time internal population growth would have done the same. And Eriador has a thousand years to work with.

It's a false feeling. Eriador was barren from conflict, but the east and south of Middle Earth is said to be inhabited with quite a few kingdoms of men.

@@Uncle_Fred I don’t think an emotion itself be false lol, nor is the premise of my comment. Mankind learned metalworking from the dwarves and/or elves, long before they even migrated to the westlands past the Sea of Rhun, and they pass through vast wildernesses and lands that are largely devoid of people or lived by peoples who were extremely spread out. I feel like it’s perfectly natural for someone, including myself ofc, to *feel* like the world of Middle Earth is empty people and civilization-wise.

One issue with Tharbad: they deliberately maintained an independence from Gondor, beyond the autonomy of Rohan. So Tharbad were perhaps aloof to the Rangers as well. The Rangers did venture south to aid the Rohirrim (Aragorn fought with Theoden's father); I assume if they wanted to marry, they married mostly Gondorian women. I'm sure the Rangers were happy to have Tharbad at least not actively hostile to the smallfolk of Eriador (notably hobbits), but it seems Tharbad didn't prepare for the winters and the floods, and didn't consult the Rangers on the deeper history of their realm. So, they collapsed.

Agrarian societies at an iron-age level of technology only have the ability to store so much food. If winter lasts just even a few weeks longer than it should, people start to starve. I would imagine Minnesota would be a brutal place to live without the benefits of modern technology.

@DarthGandalfYT People starve in a normal year. But as it happens, there are a number of non-modern tech things you can do to get through the winter. And I am unsure if T imagined a winter like MN with -40F windchills, or something like a colder Brit winter which google tells me does not even average below freezing. It's mostly a standard joke about cold so don't take it too seriously. Either way, that brings up a related thought. With Eriador mostly deforested a culture like the plains indians should have emerged. It did emerge fairly fast in reality as some at least were not always horsed nomads. They also suffered the 95% kill rates from the columbian exchange comparable to depopulation levels in Eriador.

Were there enough Nortmen to migrate there, though? The Eotheod may probably migrate into Eriador eventually, but they prefered to migrate to Calenardon, which had much better climate, was easier to reach, was closer to Gondor and so on. And after the migration of Eotheod west Rhovannion was pretty depopulated as well.