I watched the First Season of Rings of Power. Now, Numenor was supposed to be a big, self-sufficient island. It had multiple cities and settlements I think. Then why did they could send just 300-500 men and 3 ships to aid the Southlands, especially if their Queen Regent was going with them? I'd have thought they would have sent a larger army with her going.
So what happened? Is Numenor just one city, and smaller than I thought it would be? Or is it just the series muddling things up?
How small was Numenor?
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Númenor in the books was a fairly large island. It was shaped like a star, and the roughly circular central portion alone was about 250 miles in diameter, but most of the country's territory consisted of the five large peninsulas that projected from it. The dimensions can be found in A Description of the Island of Númenor, a chapter in Unfinished Tales, and also seen on the official map, drawn by Christopher Tolkien (click for full size):
Book!Númenor had several major cities we know the names of, and undoubtedly many more settlements Tolkien didn't write about, since he deliberately left Númenor only vaguely sketched out. As you note, The Rings of Power doesn't really give the impression of a large Númenor. The city depicted in ROP is a conflation of Armenelos, the capital of book!Númenor, and Rómenna, the principal seaport. I previously guesstimated them to be about sixty miles apart, based on the scale provided with the maps, but Tolkien said the figure was "about 40 miles" (NoMe, p. 325).
I'm still not 100% sure what to make of the rather pitiful force sent to Middle-earth in the show. In the books, Númenor in Míriel's time (she never held the title of Queen regent) was a major military power with a vast colonial empire, but show!Númenor seems isolationist; has apparently abandoned at least one (major in the books) colony, Pelargir; and has to hastily assemble a few hundred poorly trained volunteers to accompany its monarch on a military expedition. This suggests to me that show!Númenor is demilitarized aside from its coast guard, so the size of the force is not necessarily a reflection of the overall size of the population. It could also simply be a matter of ROP being bad at depicting scale (see also: the Southlands apparently being only a handful of villages, all but one of which are destroyed before the show begins).
Book!Númenor had several major cities we know the names of, and undoubtedly many more settlements Tolkien didn't write about, since he deliberately left Númenor only vaguely sketched out. As you note, The Rings of Power doesn't really give the impression of a large Númenor. The city depicted in ROP is a conflation of Armenelos, the capital of book!Númenor, and Rómenna, the principal seaport. I previously guesstimated them to be about sixty miles apart, based on the scale provided with the maps, but Tolkien said the figure was "about 40 miles" (NoMe, p. 325).
I'm still not 100% sure what to make of the rather pitiful force sent to Middle-earth in the show. In the books, Númenor in Míriel's time (she never held the title of Queen regent) was a major military power with a vast colonial empire, but show!Númenor seems isolationist; has apparently abandoned at least one (major in the books) colony, Pelargir; and has to hastily assemble a few hundred poorly trained volunteers to accompany its monarch on a military expedition. This suggests to me that show!Númenor is demilitarized aside from its coast guard, so the size of the force is not necessarily a reflection of the overall size of the population. It could also simply be a matter of ROP being bad at depicting scale (see also: the Southlands apparently being only a handful of villages, all but one of which are destroyed before the show begins).
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Karen Wynn Fonstad's 'Atlas of Middle-earth calculates the area of Númenor at 167, 961 square mile. This is on page 43 of the atlas, and on pages 44-45 she goes on to show the voyages of the Númenoreans.
Remembering halfir by learning something new each day
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I have that Atlas of Karen Fonstad. It comes in handy now and then, when writing a segment or a post. I have used it quite much since I bought it years ago. It is not canon, but eitherway a handy tool and more detailed to find your way around across all eras of Middle Earth. 
Just call me Aiks or Aikári. Notify is off.
Find me stuff in Gondolin.
And let us embark to Valinor!
Find me stuff in Gondolin.
And let us embark to Valinor!
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Numenor has a large population of bears that would gather up annually to do a strange dance.
...I am not making that up. See Nature of Middle Earth for more details on that.
What I will be making up is using that fact to justify the low population of Numenor in the show:
As a result of the massive deforestation of the island, there is very little wood for the bears to live in. As a result, the bears, who are very intelligent based on their dancing (dancing can be interpreted as a slowed-down version of martial arts movements. Now imagine how formiddable they would be if they are roused!), migrated into the cities and settlements of Numenor, successfully driving off the inhabitants. This led to much less living space for the Numenoreans. Less living space means less farms, less farms means less population, less population means less fighting force. Fighting off 1 bear is tricky... fighting off an organized force of bears who can dance? It is a wonder that they have so many in the first place! Luckily, it seems the bears are content with not being an active conquering force on the island, hence their lack of appearance on the show.
That is why even though Numenor is big, you see very few Numenoreans on the show... At least that would be how I'd justify it if I ever decided not to make the Numenoreans numerous and an overwhelming military force as the show apparently did.
...I am not making that up. See Nature of Middle Earth for more details on that.
What I will be making up is using that fact to justify the low population of Numenor in the show:
As a result of the massive deforestation of the island, there is very little wood for the bears to live in. As a result, the bears, who are very intelligent based on their dancing (dancing can be interpreted as a slowed-down version of martial arts movements. Now imagine how formiddable they would be if they are roused!), migrated into the cities and settlements of Numenor, successfully driving off the inhabitants. This led to much less living space for the Numenoreans. Less living space means less farms, less farms means less population, less population means less fighting force. Fighting off 1 bear is tricky... fighting off an organized force of bears who can dance? It is a wonder that they have so many in the first place! Luckily, it seems the bears are content with not being an active conquering force on the island, hence their lack of appearance on the show.
That is why even though Numenor is big, you see very few Numenoreans on the show... At least that would be how I'd justify it if I ever decided not to make the Numenoreans numerous and an overwhelming military force as the show apparently did.
