Where is Middle Earth?

[Mad Adski]

The one question I've never had answered is:

Where is Middle Earth.

Is it another planet? Another dimension? Earth in the far distant past? A strange fantasy place in the mind? I'd really like to know what people think about this.

Apparently, Tolkien was once quoted as saying that Middle Earth was Europe. Is this true?

Mad Adski.

[ReadWryt]

As Tolkien states in the Preface of The Lord of the Rings, he wrote these stories as a pre-historic mythology for England, therefor one can only assume that he had Europe in mind, with the exception of Numenor which he freely admits in "The Lost Road" was Atlantis.

[¤-Elessar-¤]

um...actually Belerind was supposed to be more like England, wasnt it? Middle earth is to the east of England.- Shaping of Middle Earth, p243- There was a land called England, and it was an island of the West, and before it was brokenit was upmost of all northern lands (clearly broken when belerind was also...)

[Ossiriand Blade]

Tolkien saw middle earth as this world in some earlier incarnation.He wanted the legends of middl earth to be a mythology for england in the same way as the norse sagas are for scandinavia,he believed that england lost its legends during the norman conquest(Tolkien despised all things french probably just because of this) A vein of englishness runs through all that is peceived as good in the LOTR,and the shire is about as english as you can get.I dont think Tolkien meant for people to derive from this that middle earth was europe/england just that the inherent anglo-saxon nature of particularly the hobbits would provide this lost mythology for england and middle earth was to be seen as lost in the mists of pre-history where these events took place.

[Taranir]

(I'm not that good in english, so please, don't mock me for that)
I'm quite sure, that the map in LOTR represents the western Europe. Professor said that the Hobbitton lies at the same height as the Oxford does. The mountains and lakes can not be placed in our european map but the coast of the Lindon matches with the 200 meters line of depht in the Atlantic ocean west from England. So, it's easy to think that the Lindon and Eriador did sink and the sea between Norway, England and Mid-Europe now covers those places.
(Damn, hard to say what I mean cos' my vocabularity isn't big enough)

[Mithrandir_II]

"The Lord of the Rings may be a 'fairy-story', but it takes place in the Northern Hemisphere of this earth: miles are miles, days are days, and weather is weather."

THE LETTERS OF JRR TOLKIEN - #210

Like I said, this is a rather general answer to the question, but I will keep my eyes open for a more accurate quote to answer the question

[Talierin]

I posted the one I use all the time here: http://www.thetolkienforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2149

[Algon]

This is probably the reason why somebody (I am trying to find out who) gave names from "Lord of the Rings" to seamounts and underwater valleys which are located southwest of Rockall (if you find a map of the ocean floor, like the one attached, you will see some of these names). I am currently trying to find a more detailed map. I have found on Google that there are also places there called Helm's Deep and Gandalf's Spur.

[Erurainon]

To which european country is Mordor closest to size? Is it as big as France/Germany or smaller, like Hungary? And how about Gondor? I've always wondered this and I find this thread the precise one to ask.