We're never told specifically where in the Shire Long Cleeve was to be found, be we do know that it was the home of a branch of the Took family known as the North-tooks. Given the known geography of the Shire, and working on the assumption that the North-tooks lived to the northward of the Tookland where the main branch of the family made their home, it seems all but inevitable that the folkland of the North-tooks must been somewhere in the Northfarthing.

'Long Cleeve' first appeared on a map of the Shire created by Christopher Tolkien in 1943, along with a series of other place-names that don't appear in any published work. It seems to refer to a long bank or cliff which (given that it was a settlement of Shire-hobbits) was presumably the site of several Hobbit-holes. Long Cleeve was not the only location in the Shire to include 'Cleeve' in its name: a place named 'Sandy Cleeve' ('sandy cliff' or 'sandbank') appeared on the same map.