How many elves were there in Middle Earth by the time of LOTR events?

Question

When answering " What are the main reasons the elves did not show up in force to defeat Sauron? " I tried to find some info but nothing was easily googlable.

How many elves were there in Middle Earth by the time of LOTR events?

Answer 1

There are no solid numbers, but Tolkien did say this in Letters:

It may be noted that at the end of the Third Age there were prob. more people (Men) that knew Q., or spoke S., than there were Elves who did either! Though dwindling, the population of Minas Tirith and its fiefs must have been much greater than that of Lindon, Rivendell, and Lórien.†

Tolkien excludes the Elves of Mirkwood (he says in this letter they speak a silvan language), but this is certainly a remarkable statement of the number of Elves remaining in Middle Earth: only very educated Men of Gondor would have known Sindarin or Quendi, and of course there are many, many more Men who do not live in Minas Tirith or its fiefs. Indeed, given the size of the army Gondor was able to field (which would naturally be larger than the number of educated Men) in the War of the Ring, this suggests to me that Rivendell, Lindon, and Lorien put together may comprise no more than a few thousands of elves!

Answer 2

There were a number of known Elven residences at the end of the Third Age. These had wildly varying numbers of Elves. The ones we know about are:

• Rivendell. As a small town, probably held less than 1,000 Elves.
• Lórien. A substantial area, could hold anywhere between 1,000 and several tens of thousands of Elves. I'd estimate somewhere around the lower part would be reasonable, so maybe 1,000 - 10,000 Elves at the most.
• Mirkwood. Encountered in The Hobbit, this seems to be the largest remaining Elven Kingdom and could hold substantial numbers. I'd estimate up to 50,000 Elves but it could be much lower.
• Lindon and the Grey Havens. We're never really given an indication of how many reside here, but enough lived there to be remnants to transport Sam over the Sea when his time came.

So as you can see it's really a guessing game. These estimates are based off the size of either location and the number of Elves we see in them.

This site provides comparisons with human numbers on Earth at various points, and demonstrates a case could be made for any total. I'd imagine not more than a couple of hundred thousand, scattered across the world and mostly distancing themselves from it but probably less.

My point is roughly there isn't a basis for any numbers - you can pick your numbers and justify them as you want. The above are my best estimates.

Answer 3

It's always pointed out in the books that the bit of Middle Earth we see in the books is only a small part of the total. Many elves never reached the western regions of Middle Earth seen in the books or film. So it's possible that the populations seen may only represent a minority of the total. Still, unless there are huge kingdoms never mentioned, the total can't be large.

Answer 4

No numbers were given, so we can only guess. Apart from dlanod's reasoning based on the size of the main congregations of elves, there were also wandering groups like the one the company encountered on their travels through the Shire. How many of these there were and of what size (I'd guess a group of more than half a dozen to a dozen would be too large to remain unnoticed in their passing) is also unknown.

Going from dlanod's deductions and rounding up we can assume several tens of thousands of elves remaining in Middle-earth by the end of the 3rd age, and a good portion of those taking the ships from the Grey Havens during and after the events narrated in the Lord of the Rings.