The title given to the Great Sea that washed the western shores of Middle-earth, and stretched on from there for an unimaginably vast distance. The title 'Shoreless' is poetic but inaccurate: far across the world, the Shoreless Sea did indeed reach a shore - that of Aman in the Uttermost West. After the Downfall of Númenor, Aman was taken away from the world, and the Sea reached different shores in the west, those of new lands created after the world was made 'Bent'.
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Seen from Middle-earth, the Great Sea extended far beyond the horizon, and so was known as 'Shoreless' though it did in fact have a distant western shore. This map (which is based on rough maps in volume IV of The History of Middle-earth) shows the Sea as it would have appeared in the First and Second Ages. After the Downfall of Númenor in II 3319, the lands in the West were taken away from the world, but other lands were made to take their place, and so the 'Shoreless' Sea continued to wash far western coasts.
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- Updated 25 March 2025
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