As a teenager, I was delighted to discover on the map of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth the name of the city where I was born. Not the same town, of course, but another, fantastical place with the same name. Nevertheless, the map gave me options. I could be a native of Bree, a small, unremarkable town in northeastern Belgium. Or I could hail from that other Bree, equally small and unremarkable, but at least located in a world brimming with magic, danger and adventure — not to mention some spectacular scenery. In contrast, my home province of Limburg, in Belgium’s northeast, is generally flat, and on the whole bereft of elves, orcs, hobbits and wizards. So I spent many hours exploring Tolkien’s world, dreaming up adventures of my own in the far corners of that map.
My perusal of this cartographic portal to another reality is definitely one of the reasons for my abiding interest in curious cartography, which I’ve been exploring for some time now on my blog Strange Maps.
To read the full, original article click on this link: In Praise of Borders - NYTimes.com
