How many elves are there in the world

This site provides comparisons with human numbers on Earth at various points, and demonstrates a case could be made for any total. I'd imagine not more than a couple of hundred thousand, scattered across the world and mostly distancing themselves from it but probably less.

My point is roughly there isn't a basis for any numbers - you can pick your numbers and justify them as you want. The above are my best estimates. It's always pointed out in the books that the bit of Middle Earth we see in the books is only a small part of the total. Many elves never reached the western regions of Middle Earth seen in the books or film.

So it's possible that the populations seen may only represent a minority of the total. Still, unless there are huge kingdoms never mentioned, the total can't be large. No numbers were given, so we can only guess. Apart from dlanod's reasoning based on the size of the main congregations of elves, there were also wandering groups like the one the company encountered on their travels through the Shire.

How many of these there were and of what size I'd guess a group of more than half a dozen to a dozen would be too large to remain unnoticed in their passing is also unknown. Going from dlanod's deductions and rounding up we can assume several tens of thousands of elves remaining in Middle-earth by the end of the 3rd age, and a good portion of those taking the ships from the Grey Havens during and after the events narrated in the Lord of the Rings.

Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Ask Question. Asked 9 years, 9 months ago. Why were these guys the leaders of the Eldar and not their parents? But even if the four Eldarin kings came from these three primal families, need they have been the oldest sons of the oldest sons?

The Silmarillion , despite its confusing textual history, was still mostly written by J. In this older tale the other chieftains are Morwe and Nurwe, and they appear to lead their own two kindreds. Nonetheless, having established there were at least three generations of Elves living at Cuivienen by the time of the Great Journey, can we look for an upper limit on the number of generations that would be there? Indeed we can. This essay establishes that Elven children matured at a much slower rate than mortal children, and reached adulthood no earlier than their fiftieth year though sometimes they continued growing until their one hundredth year.

But the Elves spaced their children some years apart. And we can be sure because of his comparison between Elven children and mortal children that Tolkien was anachronistically speaking in terms of Years of the Sun, not Years of the Trees.

I prefer to use the older ratio of 9. That is not true. We know from The Silmarillion that the Eldar had children in Beleriand prior to, during, and after the Siege of Angband. And Tolkien specifically wrote that the Noldor increased their numbers in Beleriand.

The Eldar wedded for the most part in their youth and soon after their fiftieth year. They had few children, but these were very dear to them. Their families, or houses, were held together by love and a deep feeling for kinship in mind and body; and the children needed little governing or teaching. We can infer that he means there were often four children, since if there were seldom more than three children per family he could have said as much.

Hence, if there were often four children per family, the average number of children in the early generations, at least was probably closer to four than to three. Putting all these points together, we can look at how the Elves may have increased their population in the years leading up to the Great Journey. They probably had few if any children while traveling across Middle-earth, even though the Great Journey lasted many Years of the Trees.

So the Great Journey seems to be a reasonable breaking point in calculating the growth of the Elven population. But the problem with spacing the generations out longer is that you end up with too few Elves. Still, it must be that Tolkien intended the reader to understand that thousands of Elves set out upon the Great Journey. If one simply assumes that a new generation of Elves was born every fifty years of the Sun , and that there were approximately four children per couple, then by the time of the Great Journey you end up with nearly , Elves.

This seems too great a number for several reasons, not the least being that the Elves were still afraid to venture out into the wider world on their own. Many of the Elves had disappeared through the years. So even if we agree upon an algorithm which produces a smaller number of Elves, in fact Orome probably had even fewer Elves to contend with becaue we have no reliable means of estimating how many Elves were lost in each generation. One way to estimate the Elven populations would be to assume that the Elves married and bore their first children about the time that their parents were having a second or third, or fourth child.

Hence, by staggering the count of Elves per generation, one comes up with a smaller number which still amounts to thousands. For example, there were 72 couples among the First Elves. Each couple would produce one child. Gil-galad mistrusted him and barred him from his kingdom. Sauron then approached Celebrimbor and the Elves of Eregion, and against Gil-galad's advice they accepted him and his knowledge.

With Annatar's help, Celebrimbor forged the Rings of Power , but Three Rings alone were made in secret by Celebrimbor and were not directly touched by Sauron's power. Then, Sauron forged the One Ring in order to control the others. The Elves discovered Sauron's plan and took off their rings. Furious that the Elves had foiled his plans for domination, Sauron demanded the return of the rings and when they refused he prepared for war.

For eight years, Sauron laid waste to Middle-earth in his war against the Elves, destroying Eregion and killing Celebrimbor. Gil-galad then decided to abandon Eregion in favor of the new refuge of Rivendell , formed at the foothills of the Misty Mountains and he made his herald, Elrond , the Lord of Rivendell and his representative in Eriador.

Lindon survived still as the greatest kingdom of Elves in Middle-earth. The rest of the Elves of Middle-earth who survived either moved to Lindon, sailed for the West, or continued to live in their lands under caution due to the continued threat from Sauron.

By the latter half of the Second Age, Men continued to spread and grow in Middle-earth. Though Men were set to supplant them in Middle-earth, the Elves were powerful and numerous enough to join with Men one last time to defeat Sauron.

With the dominion of Men at hand, the Elves became less numerous and more secluded with many becoming wearier of the now mortal lands. High Elves continued to live in Lindon but most sailed into the West after their king's death along with many Sindar. Elves that never chose to sail into the Utter West, instead choosing to remain in Middle-earth in places such as the Woodland Realm in the former Mirkwood , would probably become more and more secretive, less numerous, and hidden.

Eventually, these lingerers would fade away entirely as their bodies were consumed by the power of their spirits. The elves flourished in the First Age, but the Eldarin realms of Beleriand were destroyed by Morgoth, and in later ages their power waned. By the end of the Third Age the Dominion of Men was at hand, and the elves who remained in Middle-earth dwindled and became a secret people.

Unlike Men, however, they are immortal, in that their bodies do not age once they have reached maturity, so that they do not seem to become elderly or die of old age. They can be killed by physical injury however, or they may come to death from wasting away if after long eons of life they lose the will to live.

Some Elves in the First Age living near Angband died from a wasting disease, which was presumably issuing from Thangorodrim, Morgoth's fortress. Elves come of age at around fifty years old, and generally marry around this age.

Elves who marry late or never are said to have strange fates. Elves can tell in the eyes and voice of another Elf whether they are married, and it is against an Elf's nature to take another by force; one so forced would reject bodily life and die. Love words? Need even more definitions? Ask the Editors 'Everyday' vs. What Is 'Semantic Bleaching'? How 'literally' can mean "figuratively". Literally How to use a word that literally drives some pe Is Singular 'They' a Better Choice?

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