“It was in truth falling year by year into decay and already it lacked half the men that could have dwelt at ease there. Yet Tolkien’s description of the hidden nature of Middle-earth would also aptly apply to many fair urban communities throughout the globe: It is the embodiment of the achievement and accomplishment of man.
As with many cities, Minas Tirith consolidates powers and exudes culture. Certainly its many walls and gates and helmed guards ring medieval in our minds, but nevertheless it possesses many qualities also held by the contemporary urban center: tall towers and closely clumped together buildings, a relatively massive population in comparison to the surrounding fields and farmlands, feats of engineering and architecture that seem to be the world of giants or or magic. The greatest city – and surely the nearest thing to a modern conception of a city – in the wide-ranging lands of The Lord of the Rings must be Minas Tirith.
