The South

A name used in various ways across the northern parts of Middle-earth for the lands farther to the South. In places like the Shire or Rivendell, the 'South' was used to refer to Gondor, or sometimes Mordor to its direct east. For people such as the Shire-folk, these regions lay hundreds of miles away and were almost entirely unknown, but the term was not confined to the rustic people of the Shire. Even Elrond referred to Gondor as the South (and indeed so did Boromir, who was raised in Gondor, while he was in the northern lands).

The South also had a much broader sense, referring to the wide and mysterious southern continent that lay southward of Gondor. Also known as the Harad (which was simply the Elvish word for the 'South') the nearer parts of this vast region were covered in desert, but dark forests grew in its distant interior. It was occupied by creatures that were strange to the northern peoples, among them apes and immense oliphaunts. Its people - or at least those who entered the northern lands in the service of Sauron - were fierce and warlike, as were their allies, the Corsairs, who dwelt at Umbar on the Harad's western coasts.