A Description of the Island of Númenor
the geography of the Isle of the Gift
Definition
A Description of the Island of Númenor — the short opening text of the Second Age sections of Unfinished Tales — sets out the shape and regions of the great island granted to the Edain: likened to a star in form, lying in the Great Sea between Middle-earth and the Uttermost West, with the tall mountain of Meneltarma rising at its centre.
History
The description records the five promontories that stretched out from the central region — the long northern cape, the green woods of the western and southern lands, the eastern lands of the harbours — and the heartland of Mittalmar about the mountain, with the royal city of Armenelos and its tower and the great roads running thence to the havens, chief among them Rómenna. It notes the arms of the sea and the bays that cut into the island, and the forests whose timber the early mariners would come to seek. The whole is the map-lore of the island before the Shadow, the second-age counterpart of the Elves’ farther shore.
Significance
This text is the chief source for the geography of Númenor in its pride, the land “raised from the sea” and doomed at the Downfall; its regions and havens underlie the Akallabêth and the wanderings of the Faithful, and answer the eastward view found in the records of Middle-earth.