Like many Travel Between The Pages readers, I’m a big J.R.R.Tolkien fan. I can date my interest in Middle Earth back to a bit of graffiti that I saw on a wall in New York City’s Greenwich Village neighborhood when I was 15 years old. Frodo Lives tweaked my attention and the rest is history. But my interest in all things Middle Earth pales when compared to the obsession of Swedish engineer Emil Johanssen’s fascination with “data visualization and the wonderful world created by J.R.R. Tolkien.” His LOTR Project is a masterclass in Tolkien’s fantasy world.
Even folks who have just a passing interest in the LOTR universe will find Johanssen’s project fascinating. Along with original interactive maps, data visualizations, timelines, statistics, and graphs, he offers a deep dive into the demographics of Tolkien’s world with an indepth analysis of the 982 characters that populate The Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Silmarillion, and other posthumously published works.
