Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth
An interactive map of Tolkien’s Middle-earth, with events from across the legendarium plotted as markers. I have been commuting a fair bit between the East and West coast, and thanks to American Airlines' free onboard WiFi, I was able to vibe-code a full interactive map of Middle-earth right from my economy seat at the back of the bus. It's rather amazing how much an LLM knows about Tolkien's work, and it was fun to delve into many of the nooks and crannies of Tolkien's lore. Some features: - Plot on the map the journey of the main characters in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. - Follow a list of events in the chronological Timeline - Zoom in on the high-def map and explore many of the off-the-main-plotline places - Use the 'measure distances' feature to see how far apart things are. I also had a lot of fun learning about tiling to allow for efficient zooming. If you are anything like me, this should provide a fun companion to reading the books or watching the movies (note that on this site, I followed the book narrative, and did not include Peter Jackson's many departures) If you get the chance to check it out, I would love more feedback, and if there is demand, I might do the same for Game of Thrones.
Discussion Highlights (14 comments)
bananaflag
I notice the map is the one from the movies (it shows the Orocarni a bit too close, but it's nice they appear on the map). Maybe when describing historical events you should also put the year (it is given only for some of them). Anyway, very nice work! I think it's appropriate especially for casual fans (especially movie fans) to delve (sorry) deeper into the lore.
twostorytower
This is awesome! Can you make the zoom in and out smoother? I have to pinch every single time to get to the next zoom level instead of continuously zooming as I pinch.
shdh
Using a tile server for this feels hilarious
topherjaynes
One doesn't simply vibe code into Mordor!(but seriously love this)
kilbey1
Mad respect; I've been working on building maps and it's a LOT harder than it might seem.
balajeekalyan
Wow! this is so detailed. You are putting vibe-code to genuine use.
pants2
Would love just for fun to feed this through an image generator to make it look like satellite imagery or maybe even Google Maps.
blevinstein
Arda was supposed to be drastically changed after the First Age. This map is from the Second/Third Ages. Do the events from the First Age map currently into what is shown? Do some have to be excluded?
strider_2018
I made an account just to say thank you. Really great work. I would love to see a map of the first age events.
imwally
Anyone know a decent place where I can buy a giant print of this for my wall?
vldszn
Looks very good! Thank you
freakynit
As much hate as vibe-coding gets (and most of it is justified), it has also allowed all of us to vibe-code our thoughts to small single-page web apps very easily. Shameless vibe-coded plugs for my own regular usage: 1. https://llm-token-cost-calculator.pagey.site/ 2. https://metrics-memory-usage.pagey.site/
jcstryker
Great work! A window into one of the most important universe we have created. Any chance you would be willing to share the source code?
randomeel
Amazing ! But it did kind of spoil the rest of the books since i am reading LOTR for the first time...