Tamera:Well the actual ficticious place that Tolkien created, Middle Earth, does not exist but the movie was filmed in NZ. Is there actually some where named 'Middle earth' there? That would be quite an amusing coincidence.
Actually Middle Earth did and does exist. Much of the world that people credit Tolkien for creating came straight out of Norse mythology (religions of Scandanavia before killed by Chrilstianity). Middle Earth was simply the land that mortals inhabited:
The term "Middle-earth" was not invented by Tolkien. Rather, it existed in Old English as middanġeard and in Middle English as midden-erd or middel-erd; in Old Norse it was called Midgard. It is English for what the Greeks called the οικουμένη (pron. oy-koo-mé-nay) or "the abiding place of men", the physical world as opposed to the unseen worlds (The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, 151).
Middangeard occurs half-a-dozen times in Beowulf, which Tolkien translated and on which he was arguably the world's foremost authority. (See also J. R. R. Tolkien for discussion of his inspirations and sources). See Midgard and Norse mythology for the older use.
Tolkien was also inspired by this fragment:
Eala earendel engla beorhtast / ofer middangeard monnum sended.
Hail Earendel, brightest of angels / above the middle-earth sent unto men.