Old South Road

The course of the Old South Road. The solid white line marks the known length of the road (that is, the section clearly marked as the 'Old South Road' on the original map), while the entire North-South Road is shown as a faded line.

The name given in northern lands to a stretch of the long North-South Road that ran southward from the northern city of Fornost across Eriador, though Tharbad, and on toward the South-kingdom of Gondor. In the earlier Third Age, this had been an important route through Middle-earth, connecting the Two Kingdoms of the Dúnedain. In later history, especially after the fall of the North-kingdom, the road fell into decay, and by the end of the Third Age its northern stretches were ruined and grass-grown.

The Old South Road appears on maps included with earlier editions of The Lord of the Rings, on which it is shown running southward from Tharbad, and then becoming lost in the wilds of Enedwaith. The position of the label seems to imply that the name was given specifically to the ruinous section of the road extending from Tharbad into the wilds (as distinct from the Greenway, the length of road that ran down to Tharbad from the north). This is, however, somewhat ambiguous, and the label could be read as referring to the entire southern part of the road from Bree, including the Greenway.

More recent editions of the book do not include a reference the Old South Road. Where the original map showed the ruined road disappearing as it crossed Enedwaith, more recent editions show the entire course of the road from Arnor to Gondor, and label it as the 'North-South Road' rather than the 'Old South Road'.