It is difficult because the Second Age kind of “stopped” twice. Once with the Fall of Númenor and then, about 150 years later, with the Last Alliance and the defeat of Sauron. The end of the Second Age on a map looks about the same as the beginning of the Third Age in terms of place names, coastline or border lines. In addition, the difference to the middle of the Second Age is already much greater. Númenor is still listed on the map, the place names are different, we are literally before the transformation of the world by Ilúvatar.



It will be of great importance for the series when exactly the plot takes place, at which point in Middle-earth history something happens. This was one of our difficulties when creating a map for the Second Age, because you have to determine very precisely what date this map should be from. Tolkien wrote some of it down, but as far as the Second Age goes, the information we have is a three-page timeline in the appendices to the Lord of the Rings and the List of Kings of Númenor and a little more material in the Unfinished Tales, but that’s about all.