In the early First Era, the Nords conquered in whole or parts of High Rock, Morrowind and Cyrodill ushering in the First Nordic Empire. However I was wondering why nothing I've seen suggested that they also tried to expand into Hammerfell during that time period too. Before the arrival of the Ra'gada centuries later, the region was supposedly inhabited by an unspecified Nedic race and the Aldmer (along with their descendants) whom were mostly dispatched upon the arrival of the Ra'gada. The Dwemer didn't arrive until the creation of the First Council which was pretty much around the time the Nordic Empire was collapsing.

With maybe the exception of the Orcs, the resistance they met wouldn't have been much considering what they've accomplished in other provinces already. With the collapse of the empire from the 4-6 century and the loss of their holdings they also won't have to deal with the Ra'gada during the 9th century and whatever crazy continent-nuking sword techniques they brought with them.

So Nords being the blood thirsty warmongering barbarian they are especially in that era, why would they leave such a large and close-by province alone?

Was it because they despised the heat?

Well, Hammerfell was called the Deathlands before the Rourken clan named it Volenfell...

Morrowind wasn't exactly a nice place either...

True. I'm sure the sun is way more blistering in Hammerfell, though. Nords are fair-skinned people.

Maybe they just kept hitting the large deserts and saw no reason to 'conquer' such a place.....desert lands are pretty useless.

This is my understanding of it.

But not all of Hammerfell is a desert. The Aliker Desert is a major geographical region in the province, but it doesn't cover the province entirely. The Southern area would be more like Cyrodiil while the Eastern area would be more like Skyrim.

You would have to go pretty deep to get close to the A'likr desert and there is plenty of fertile and more habitable places between there and Skyrim and that is like saying Skyrim is just a snow tundra or Morrowind is just volcanoes...

Vvardenfell is just a volcano, but the rest of Morrowind is much different story. I'd imagine by the time they got to Hammefell they were pretty stretched thin.

Uhhh it is right beside Skyrim....

and yet their campaigns took them elsewhere. Just because its there doesn't mean it has to be their logical choice for invasion. Obviously Cyrodiil, High Rock and Morrowind had more to offer the Nords.

Indeed, perhaps they would have invaded from the sea and landed on the shores, and to get to Hammerfell you had to go all the way around High Rock. I think most of eastern Hammerfell would have been claimed by the Nords, but once the terrain became more arid they decided to stop expansion.

I imagine that, when the Nordic Empire was expanding, they probably did move into eastern Hammerfell's Druadec Mountains, if they weren't there already. The areas around Dragonstar and Elinhir were probably under Nordic occupation. They would have fought with Reachmen and Orcs for these areas. They may have toyed with invading northern Hammerfell, along the Illiac Coast. If I remember correctly, we have conflicting information as to how far the Nords got in High Rock. At least one source says they got as far as Daggerfall, while another source or two mentions they only made it to the Bjoulsae River valley.

Meanwhile, in the rest of Hammerfell, the population would have been pretty sparse. Orcs would have occupied the interior, their center of power being the Dragontail Mountains. Nedes and Aldmer probably made up the rest of the population along the coast and in the eastern mountains.

I think it seems likely that the areas of Hammerfell, as suggested many times over, didn't offer enough compensation for the effort of establishing and maintaining themselves there. The only major settling of this part of Tamriel came when the Yokudans had sunk their own continent, meaning people who didn't have much choice.

And yet as I said many times over, the areas of Hammerfell close to the borders of Skyrim and High Rock were very habitable, fertile and offered little to no resistance to conquest with maybe the exception of the Dragontail mountains. Hell why else would the Nords take some of those areas during the war of Bendr'mak.

I'm just curious as to why there is no information in regards Nord activities there in the First Era. If they knew the rest of the province was a barren desert that mean't that they would had to enter pretty deep to see that.

Seeing their proximity to the High Rock and Skyrim border, I would be surprised it if wasn't a part of their kingdom at the time, but any major settlement of Hammerfell beyond that seems unlikely. And with the lack of Redguards at the time, it seems likely that these areas might have been a part of the kingdom of High Rock. Borders change often. Like Skyrim's western border; sometimes it has included the Reach, sometimes it hasn't and the border moving accordingly.

If you look at the maps of Hammerfell on TIL, only the area around Elinhir is paticularly fertile (looks more like savanah to me) that borders Skyrim. The majority of the Skyrim/Hammerfell border is mountains and badlands. You only get into the fertile bits when you hit the Illiac Bay and the riverlands around Gilane/Taneth/Rihad.