Umbar

Umbar lay on the northern coast of Harad, south across the Bay of Belfalas from the mouths of Anduin, around a great natural harbour with a narrow entrance, the finest on the western coasts. The Númenóreans had built it into a fortified haven in the Second Age, and it was the chief seat of their power in the south. From it the Kings' Men, who rejected the Valar and hated the Elves, ruled the coasts of Harad, and after the Downfall their descendants, the Black Númenóreans, kept it as a stronghold of Sauron's friends. In the Third Age the Corsairs of Umbar, the heirs of the rebels of the Kin-strife, sailed from it to raid Gondor. On a hill above the harbour stood a great pillar with a crystal globe at its top, raised by the Númenóreans to mark the place where Ar-Pharazôn had landed to humble Sauron; the Corsairs cast it down after Sauron's return.

The Second Age

The Númenóreans settled the haven early in their expansion and by S.A. 2280 had made it a great fortress. In 3261 Ar-Pharazôn landed there with the greatest fleet ever seen, and Sauron came to him and surrendered. After the Downfall Umbar was held by the King's Men, enemies of Elendil's people and servants of Sauron in the war of the Last Alliance.

Gondor and Umbar

The Ship-king Eärnil I took Umbar in T.A. 933 and made it a fortress of Gondor; the Haradrim besieged it, and Ciryandil died there in 1015, before Hyarmendacil I broke the siege in 1050. For four hundred years it was Gondor's southern base. In 1448 the sons of Castamir, defeated in the Kin-strife, fled there with the fleet and made Umbar independent, and from it the Corsairs raided the coasts, sacking Pelargir and killing King Minardil in 1634. Telumehtar Umbardacil retook the haven in 1810 and destroyed the last of Castamir's line, but Gondor could not hold it through the wars with the Wainriders, and it fell again to Men of Harad and mixed lords in the enemy's service.

The Corsairs and the War of the Ring

The Corsairs raided in the Long Winter of 2758, landing three fleets along the coasts. In 2980 the captain Thorongil, who was Aragorn serving Ecthelion II in disguise, led a small fleet by night into the haven and burned most of the Corsair ships, killing the Captain of the Haven, and then left Gondor's service. In the War of the Ring the Corsairs sailed north with fifty great ships and many smaller to attack Pelargir and Minas Tirith from the river, and it was this fleet that Aragorn captured with the help of the Dead at Pelargir on March 13, 3019 and brought to the Harlond. In the Fourth Age King Elessar's fleets went south, and Umbar was again for a time a haven of the Reunited Kingdom.

Umbar lay on the coast of Near Harad, south-east across the bay from Belfalas and some four hundred miles south of Pelargir by sea. The lands about it were dry hills of the Haradrim.