Beleriand Geography

[Lord Xanthyz]

South of Ard-Galen the great highlands named Dorthonion stretched for sixty leagues from east to west...
-Pg. 141 Ballantine Edition
Now, a league is 7 miles correct? That means that Dorthonion streched for 420 miles east to west. So, by the take-a-ruler-and-estimate rule, Beleriand (from west at Vinyamar to east and Ered Luin behind Lake Helevorn) is almost 4000 miles across. That is truly amazing especially to look at the huge mass of land in the map in LoTR compared to what is in The Silmarillion. So, all the walking and stuff these people did, really took them a while to do. And imagine what distances Frodo and Sam in LoTR had to cover!

Just another rant. :p

[Inoldonil]

The Online Merriam-Webster Dictionary says a league is 'any of various units of distance from about 2.4 to 4.6 statute miles (3.9 to 7.4 kilometers)'

For scale in comparison to the LR maps, take a look at that island in the LR Map, off the coast of Northern Lindon, labeled, Himling. That is supposed to be the Hill of Himring on the March of Maedhros.

[Lord Xanthyz]

Seriously?
Then A LOT of Beleriand fell into the ocean...

[Lord Xanthyz]

And one more thing. let's just assume 1 league = 3.5 miles, since 3.5 is the mean of 2.4 and 4.6 :)

[Inoldonil]

Then A LOT of Beleriand fell into the ocean...

Sure did. All that survived (save islands such as Himling) was a part of Lindon (Ossiriand).

[Earendilyon]

According to UT, Ch. VII, Appendix, 'league' was the translation of the Numenorean 'lar'. They are almost exactly of the same length (a lar was less than 3 yards less than our league). The league is 3 miles long (4.8 km).

[Lord Xanthyz]

So if I was looking at a LotR and tried to imagine where the rest of Beleriand would have been if it didn't fall into the ocean, it would have stretched out quite a bit....

The Silmarillion doesn't really go into the effects of that event, but I am assuming a bunch of people died...