Whoever hijacked that radio station in England in the 1980s or so.................looked elven..........

Middle-earth cosmology[edit]

Main article: Middle-earth cosmology

One way to understand Middle-earth's place in Tolkien's complex system is to see his whole creation as a series of worlds within worlds. As the outer layer is the whole universe itself, called by Tolkien "Eä". Within Eä are many mysterious and unknown worlds, but the events of his stories take place in the world called "Arda". Arda is what we would call Earth, called by Tolkien "Imbar" or "Ambar" (meaning 'the Habitation') and the sun, moon and stars which revolve around it. Within Arda are the continents of Aman and Middle-earth (which was actually two or even more continents), which are separated from each other by the Great SeaBelegaer (analogous to the Atlantic Ocean). Within his stories, Tolkien translated the name "Middle-earth" as Endor (or sometimes Endórë) and Ennor in the Elvish languages Quenya and Sindarin respectively, sometimes referring only to the continent that the stories take place on, with another southern continent called the Dark Land.

The western continent, Aman, was the home of the Valar and the Elves called the Eldar. An uninhabited Eastern continent is also mentioned, but does not figure in the stories. The island of Númenor lay in Belegaer between Aman and Middle-earth, but was later drowned. In later ages Aman was also removed by the creator Eru Ilúvatar from Arda completely to prevent Men from trying to reach it.

In the beginning Ambar was supposed to be a "flat world", in that its habitable land-masses were all arranged on one side of the world. Tolkien's sketches show a disc-like face for the world which looked up to the stars. However, according to accounts in both The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, when the king of Númenor called Ar-Pharazôn invaded Aman to seize immortality from the Valar, they laid down their guardianship of the world and Ilúvatar intervened, destroying Númenor, removing Aman "from the circles of the world", and reshaping Ambar into the round world of today. The Akallabêth says that the Númenóreans who survived the Downfall sailed as far west as they could in search of their ancient home, but their travels only brought them around the world back to their starting points. Hence, before the end of the Second Age, the transition from "flat Earth" to "round Earth" had been completed. New lands were also created in the west, analogous to the New World.

A few years after publishing The Lord of the Rings, in a note associated with the unique narrative story "Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth" (which is said to occur in Beleriand during the War of the Jewels), Tolkien equated Arda with the Solar System; because Arda by this point consisted of more than one heavenly body (Valinor being another planet and the Sun and Moon being celestial objects in their own right and not objects orbiting the Earth).