: I believe the question was about the population of peoples ( Elf, Man, Dwarf ). I suppose you could include orcs, but there is still now way to determine what the population of ME was at any given time, except for time prior to the awakening of the elves. At that time, the number of peoples inhabiting ME would be zero.

Just because a fox wondered about the hobbits does not mean he could articulate the question It does not make him intelligent