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When the Valar entered Arda, it was still lifeless and had no distinct geographical features. Based on Karen Wynn Fonstad's Atlas of Middle-earth

The Spring of Arda, lit by the two great lamps. The first 15 of the Ainur that descended to Arda, and the most powerful ones, were called Valar the lesser Ainur were called Maiar. Then Ilúvatar created Eä, which means "to be," the universe itself, and formed within it Arda, the Earth, "globed within the void": the world together with the three airs is set apart from Avakúma, the "void" without. The essence of their song symbolized the history of the whole universe and the Children of Ilúvatar that were to dwell in it- Men and Elves. Melkor, then the most powerful of the Ainur, broke the harmony of the music, until Ilúvatar began first a second theme, and then a third theme, which the Ainur could not comprehend since they were not the source of it.

Ilúvatar created spirits named the Ainur from his thoughts, and some were considered brothers or sisters. The supreme deity of Tolkien's universe is Eru Ilúvatar. Main articles: Ainulindalë and Cosmology of Middle-earth Most Middle-earth stories take place in the first three Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar.Īrda is, as critics have noted, "our own green and solid Earth at some quite remote epoch in the past." As such, it has not only an immediate story but a history, and the whole thing is an "imagined prehistory" of the Earth as it is now. All the subsequent Ages took place during the Years of the Sun. The first such Age began with the Awakening of the Elves during the Years of the Trees and continued for the first six centuries of the Years of the Sun. A separate, overlapping chronology divides the history into 'Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar'. Time from that point was measured using Valian Years, though the subsequent history of Arda was divided into three time periods using different years, known as the Years of the Lamps, the Years of the Trees and the Years of the Sun. Tolkien's legendarium, the history of Arda, also called the history of Middle-earth, began when the Ainur entered Arda, following the creation events in the Ainulindalë and long ages of labour throughout Eä, the fictional universe. Tolkien meant Arda to be "our own green and solid Earth", seen here in the Baltistan mountains, "at some quite remote epoch in the past".