In J. R. R. Tolkien's high fantasy The Lord of the Rings, Harad is the immense land south of Gondor and Mordor. Its main port is Umbar, the base of the Corsairs of Umbar whose ships serve as the Dark Lord Sauron's fleet. Its people are the dark-skinned<!--
The elves named the land and its people Haradwaith, "South-folk", from the Sindarin harad, meaning "south", and gwaith, meaning "people". The Quenya word Hyarmen similarly means "south" in addition to being the name of the country. The hobbits called the area the Sunlands, and the people Swertings. Aragorn briefly describes his journeys in the land as being in "Harad where the stars are strange". Tolkien confirmed that this meant that Aragorn had travelled "some distance into the southern hemisphere" in Harad.
thumb|left|Tolkien called the Corsairs of Umbar's ships "[[dromunds" (galleys, as in this reconstruction) and deep ships with oars and sails. who provide the Dark Lord Sauron with a sizeable fleet. The ships are different types of galleys, with both oars and sails; some are named as dromunds, others as having a deep draught (requiring a deep channel), many oars, and black sails.
Elsewhere in Harad there are "many towns"; one of these is "the inland city", the home of Queen Berúthiel (mentioned by Tolkien in an interview).
The Harad Road is the main overland route between Gondor and Harad.
Harad possesses jungles with apes, grasslands, and deserts.
Gondor described Harad as consisting of Near Harad and Far Harad. Near Harad corresponds loosely with North Africa or the Maghreb, while Far Harad, the vastly larger of the two regions, corresponds loosely with sub-Saharan Africa. Tolkien's own annotated map of Middle-earth, used by the illustrator Pauline Baynes to construct her iconic map, suggests that "Elephants appear in the great battle outside Minas Tirith (as they did in Italy under Pyrrhus) but they would be in place in the blank squares of Harad – also camels."
People
thumb| [[Christopher Tolkien linked the Haradrim with ancient Aethiopians. Frodo and Sam meet Faramir and his Rangers of Ithilien just before the latter ambush a company of Haradrim on the North Road. Frodo and Sam do not see much of the battle, since they are positioned elsewhere, but they hear the sounds of fighting, and a slain Haradrim warrior crashes at their feet. This warrior is described as having "brown" skin, with black plaits of hair braided with gold.
History
The Haradrim are independent peoples, but in the Second Age they are caught between the ambitions of Sauron (the Dark Lord) and the Númenóreans, who often kill Haradrim or sell them as slaves, and who become rulers of Harad. Over the centuries many Haradrim fall under Sauron's dominion, and to "them Sauron was both king and god, and they feared him exceedingly". They become mixed with Númenórean settlers, some of whom fall under the sway of Sauron as "Black Númenóreans". Under King Hyarmendacil I "South-victor" of Gondor, Harad becomes a vassal of Gondor. By the time of the War of the Ring, the Haradrim are again under the dominion of Sauron, and the Haradrim Corsairs provide the whole of his Black Fleet; many other Haradrim join his armies, some riding mûmakil. In the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, the leader of the Haradrim army is killed by King Théoden of Rohan.
Tolkien did not work out any particular languages for the Haradrim, though mûmak, "elephant", may be in the Harad language. Despite having a meaning in Quenya ("fate"), the name Umbar is adapted from the natives' language and not from Elvish or Adûnaic.
Concept and creation
"Sigelwara Land"
Tolkien arrived at the idea of Harad, a hot Southern land, through his philological work. The Old English Biblical poem Exodus in the tenth-century Codex Junius 11 includes a passage that caught Tolkien's attention:
{| width="500px" style="margin:1em auto;"
|-
! Codex Junius 11<br/>(Old English) !! Modern English
|-
| .. be suðan Sigelwara land, forbærned burhhleoðu, brune leode, hatum heofoncolum.
|| "... southward lay the Ethiop's land, parched hill-slopes and a race burned brown by the heat of the sun."
|}