Just as an FYI: if anyone here is near to or planning a trip to Oxford (UK), there is currently a free Tolkien exhibition that includes many original maps (and working drafts) at the Weston Library.

I saw it last month -- it's quite small (one room), but exquisitely designed, with numerous original maps, drawings and manuscripts, and interactive displays (the relief map is most beautiful).

These are beautiful I cannot help but nitpick the mountains in California. Those mountains bordering NV and CA are majestic, and their tallest peaks are not at the delta near Sacramento, but south of there, closer to Visalia and Fresno. The Blueridge and Appalchian mountains appear majestic in these maps, but these do not really compare in height (e.g. tallest peak 4,000 ft compared to 14,505 in Sierra Nevada), although they do have a greater length. https://www.ducksters.com/geography/us_states/us_mountain_ra...

I cannot help but nitpick either. You're off by over 50% on your eastern mountains:

Mount Mitchell, NC: 6684 feet [1]

Mount Washington, NH: 6288 feet [2]

These eastern Mountains are indeed majestic, towering overhead when you look to ascend them. Mt Washington would stand in perfectly for Caradhras.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Mitchell

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Washington_(New_Hampshir...

good catch, but add those two peaks together and they are still shorter than Mount Whitney.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Whitney

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Nevada_(U.S.)

Print them out poster-sized and sell them on Etsy. I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

I have an old HP pen plotter, I may give it a go.

Likewise.

Anyone want to stand up an OSM tileserver for this?

It would be cool if someone will create Maperitive rules file (.mrules) for render OSM.[0,1]

There are some examples of .mrules and other useful things for Maperitive.[2,3]

Also, on OSM wiki there are few pages useful for design rules for Maperitive.[4,5,6]

[0] http://maperitive.net

[1] http://maperitive.net/docs/FAQ.html

[2] https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=maperitive&s=updated&type...

[3] https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=mrules&s=updated&type=Rep...

[4] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Maperitive

[5] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Maperitive/HowTo

[6] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Maperitive/SampleRenderi...

That was my first thought too. If I get some spare time this weekend I'll take a swing at it. I'll comment back here if I do it, or you can email me.

Would be interested in helping. If you need any. Otherwise I may do one on my own too.

Also my first thought. Please somebody do this...

If you like cool (live) maps, I've always enjoyed the watercolor setting on Stamen Maps[1]. They have others, too.

[1] http://maps.stamen.com/#toner/12/37.7706/-122.3782

Cracks me up to see the mostly-treeless Columbia River basin rendered as though it were Mirkwood, but I guess that's the best fit for the style.

Same for southern Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico

Wow! I've seen artists who hand draw in Tolkien's style (https://www.middleearthsmaps.com/) but I never would have thought it could be done so well automatically!

Those are a poor copy of the style. They're way more simplistic and less detailed.

Nitpick: the map he shows was drawn by Christopher Tolkien, not Pauline Baynes.

This looks super interesting. I was expecting a Github link with a Mapbox Stlyesheet, if anyone has one please send it my way.

From the article: "If you are interested in trying out making digital Middle Earths, here is an ArcGIS Pro style file with all the doodads you’ll need. If you don’t run that, then here is a zip file with all of the textures and graphics that you can use to symbolize your layers." Links are included there.

I suppose Mapbox could be created from that?

here's a link to some background and resource files: https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-pro/mapping...

fantastic. great writing style on this page also, not at all like too few bits spread over too much whitespace