Rhovanion
Wilderland, Mirkwood, Erebor, the Long Lake
The Story
Rhovanion is Wilderland, the wild east country between the Misty Mountains and the inland Sea of Rhûn. Most of the great events of the Third Age that did not happen in Gondor happened here. The wood-elves of Thranduil keep their halls in the north of Mirkwood. The Lady Galadriel and her kin keep Lothlórien at the wood's southern edge.
Bilbo Baggins rode east across these lands to the Lonely Mountain in his strange unscheduled adventure. The Lake-men of Esgaroth slew the dragon Smaug at the door of Erebor. The Necromancer was driven out of Dol Guldur, except that he was Sauron all along. From Mirkwood's southern eaves the Fellowship walked into Lothlórien; from the Sea of Rhûn the Easterlings rode against Gondor in the last war.
The Land
The wild east of the Misty Mountains, the great forest of Mirkwood, taller than wide, runs much of its western length. The Anduin runs south through the western half toward Gondor.
- Mirkwood, the great dark forest filling much of the country, with Thranduil's halls in the north and Dol Guldur in the south.
- Lothlórien, Galadriel's hidden wood at the southern foot of the Misty Mountains, west of the Anduin.
- Fangorn, the ancient forest at the Misty Mountains' southeastern foot, where the Ents still walk.
- Erebor (the Lonely Mountain), the isolated peak east of northern Mirkwood; the Dwarves' kingdom under the mountain.
- Esgaroth (Lake-town), the town on stilts on the Long Lake, with Dale at Erebor's foot.
- Iron Hills, the dwarvish range east of Erebor.
- Sea of Rhûn, the great inland sea where the named world fades.