Rhovanion

Rhovanion is the name for the whole eastern wilderness, which The Hobbit calls Wilderland. On the map it runs from the eastern slopes of the Misty Mountains to the lands around the Celduin, and from the Grey Mountains in the north down to the Brown Lands and Emyn Muil. Mirkwood sits in the middle of it, the Anduin runs down its western side, and Lothlorien, Erebor, Dale and the Iron Hills are all within its bounds.

The Northmen of Rhovanion were the great power here in the earlier Third Age, farmers and horsemen who cleared the East Bight and held the plains. Gondor treated them as allies against the east. The marriage of Prince Valacar to Vidumavi, daughter of their king, brought their blood into Gondor's royal line and helped cause the Kin-strife in TA 1432.

Two disasters ended their realm. The Wainriders overran the country in TA 1856, and the Great Plague swept through from TA 1636. Survivors moved north into the Anduin vales, and from those remnants came the Eothéod and, later, the Rohirrim.

After that Rhovanion had no single ruler. Woodmen, Beornings, Lake-men, Wood-elves and dwarves each kept their own corner, with Dol Guldur pressing on all of them from southern Mirkwood.

Events at this place

1. TA 1250 · Appendices

   Vidumavi marries Valacar

   The Gondorian prince married the daughter of the king of Rhovanion, a union that later triggered the Kin-strife over the royal line.

2. TA 1636 · Appendices

   The Great Plague

   The plague spread from the south and killed much of the population of Rhovanion along with many in Gondor and Eriador.

3. TA 1856 · Appendices

   The Wainriders overrun the plains

   The eastern confederacy destroyed the kingdom of the Northmen and drove the survivors north and west.

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