Free Land

A Free Land was part of a greater kingdom that existed as an autonomous land in its own right. We have only a single record of such a land: this was the status bestowed on the Shire by King Aragorn Elessar after the War of the Ring. While the Shire lay within the boundaries and the protection of the North-kingdom of the Dúnedain, the Shire-hobbits were given the authority to order their own affairs. Indeed, when Aragorn proclaimed its status as a Free Land in IV 6 (or 1427 by the Shire-reckoning), he also banned all Men - including himself - from entering the Land of the Halflings.

The political arrangements within the new Free Land of the Shire are not explained in detail, but it may be notable that the year of Aragorn's edict was also the year that Samwise Gamgee began his long tenure as Mayor. Sam would go on to serve as Mayor for no less than forty-nine years. Not long after the creation of the Free Land of the Shire, in IV 13 (S.R. 1434) Peregrin Took succeeded to the Thainship. At that time Aragorn named the Mayor, the Thain and the Master of Buckland (a title now held by Meriadoc Brandybuck) as Counsellors of the North-kingdom. So the Shire-hobbits gained a role in the government of the greater land of Arnor within which their Free Land lay.

The Shire is the only definitive example of a Free Land, but a case could be made that the Drúadan Forest also had a claim to this status. After the War of the Ring, Aragorn gave the land over to the Drúedain who lived there, and denied entry to outsiders, except by the leave of the forest's inhabitants. These aren't quite the same conditions as applied to the Shire, but they are similar enough that the Drúadan Forest might reasonably be considered a further example of a Free Land.