However, in Peter Jackson's films, Middle Earth is actually composed of dozens of incredible locations around New Zealand. While they might not be full of elves and hobbits, the natural beauty They have in addition suggested real-world places such as Venice, Rome, and Constantinople/Byzantium as analogues of places in Middle-earth. The cartographer Karen Wynn Fonstad has created detailed thematic maps for Tolkien's major Middle-earth books, The Hobbit , The Lord of the Rings , and The Silmarillion . CDMD3.