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.
Notes
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The only inhabitants of the South to enter the stories of the northern parts of Middle-earth were Men, and in particular those Men who fought against their northern neighbour Gondor. This does not necessarily mean that the only inhabitants of the South were Men; this region stretched on for a great distance southward from the known parts of Middle-earth, and may very well have been inhabited by other peoples as well.
Those Elves known as Avari originated in the East in the distant past, but some later wandered widely, and it seems at least plausible that some of these wanderers might have travelled into the South. Neither Dwarves nor Hobbits, however, seem likely to have been found their way this far southward (what we know of the histories of these peoples are rooted in the North). Of the other races of beings found in Middle-earth, we can do little more than speculate (for example, we know that there were jungles in the South, so perhaps some kind of jungle Ent might have existed there). We cannot dismiss the possibility that the South might have been inhabited by other kinds of being entirely unknown in the North and West of Middle-earth.
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See also...
City of the Corsairs, Dark Lord, Horsemen of Rohan, King of Men, Lord of the Black Land, Men out of the South, Middle-earth, Seat of Seeing, South-victor, The East, West of Middle-earth
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- Updated 12 January 2025
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