[TWOIAF spoilers] Maps in the book

[Fat Mac]

Didn't really see a thread for this, so here goes.

The regional maps before each Kingdom's history are interesting. They aren't super special or revealing (that's why we have a map book), but some things were revealed with these maps I believe.

New things in these maps

-For the first time, Sharp Point (seat of house Bar Emmon) is shown as an island, instead of a continuation of Massey's hook

-This is the first time we get official borders for the regions of Westeros

-The Westerlands controls quite a bit of coast into what was previously thought as Riverlands territory. It goes almost all the way to Oldstones. I'd never seen that done on maps before the books, and it seems odd, to be honest.

-Several locations are labelled as towns in this book instead of just castles. Among these are Goldengrove, Weeping Town (whose existence was unknown before the book), Vaith and Godsgrace

-On the contrary, several locations that were labelled as towns in the novels are shown as Castles, those being Tumbleton and Pebbleton

-The maps show major resources for each of the regions

-Gives the locations of several of the mentioned castles of the Iron Islands

Mistakes/questions

-The Arbor in this book is portrayed as one island, as it was through FfC. Yet the Dance map as well as the lands book portray it as one large islands with several smaller islands. Whats with the confusion?

-Saltpans is listed as a town in both the Riverlands and Vale maps. I'm assuming if any of them are wrong, it's the Vale one, since the series establishes Saltpans as being in the Riverlands

Dont know if anyone is interested in this stuff, just thought I should make comments on it.

[Boarsbane]

A lot of people seemed to think the Golden Tooth was a border with the Westerlands and Riverlands and judging from the map that isn't true at all, in fact it is pretty far into the Westerlands and it is kind of odd Edmure thought he could get away with marching an army that deep into Tywin's land

[Fat Mac]

A lot of people seemed to think the Golden Tooth was a border with the Westerlands and Riverlands and judging from the map that isn't true at all, in fact it is pretty far into the Westerlands and it is kind of odd Edmure thought he could get away with marching an army that deep into Tywin's land

Nice catch. Its a bit odd the Golden Tooth is where it is, seeing as it acts as a defense against foreign invasions. It looks like armies can get quite far before getting to GT.

[creganstark]

We also finally got the location of Cerwyn castle (in the wolfswood, to the southwest of Winterfell) and of Stone Hedge

[Ibbison from Ibben]

What's the meaning of the strange symbols on the region maps? There's two types, round symbols and loop symbols on a border.. (I'll use the map of the North on p134 as an example.)

Right beneath the "o" in north there is a circle divided into three vertical stripes. The left is brown, the right is black, the center is divided into two parts vertically, with green over white. Similar round symbols (sometimes multiple ones) show up on other region maps.

In the lower left corner, there is a loop on the bottom border, with some kind of a design inside. The same sort of loop shows up on all the region maps, but the design varies (although some of the elements are the same.) It's hard to describe.

Any clues?

[Ramsay's Penguins]

Well the star sorta designs are like a compass rose, with all the different directions. The striped colours circles are just colours used in the map. Its that artists little thing. I think its cute, but it means nothing. Colour testing and that sorta thing.

[Ibbison from Ibben]

The Riverland smap (p150) is similar to the North map, but with four vertical stripes. Look at the Iron Islands map on p174. The circle thingy has weird shapes in it, and doesn't look like a color test pattern. There's two on the Vale map on p162. The Westerlands map has two that almost look like astrological symbols.The Reach (p208) has a single simple circle symbol with vertical stripes.The Stormlands symbol (p220) is funky. Dorne (p234) has five that look like astrological symbols.

[Ramsay's Penguins]

I think they are just artistic lisence. There is also cows trampling the Reach on the Riverlands map, the vulture shadow over Dorne and ships in all the seas. They are just little things the artist does.

[creganstark]

Why is the icon for Cerwyn castle much bigger than all the other castles in the North and the same size of Winterfell?

[Nictarion]

Why is Raventree Hall not marked on the Riverlands map?

[Stannis's Lawyer]

Why is Raventree Hall not marked on the Riverlands map?

We already know where it is from TLOIAF.

[Nictarion]

We already know where it is from TLOIAF.

Where? It's not near Riverrun?

[Stannis's Lawyer]

Where? It's not near Riverrun?

Same longitude as Riverrun and same latitude as Fairmarket.

[Waters Gate]

Obviouslt the Asoiaf map should technicly be very wrong at certain places, because it's a flat map projection which implies deformation. Well ive discussed this before and Stannis laywer knows that, the errors are more liklier to be found in Essos that in Westeros though as the map is likely made by Westerosi. That or Grrm never considered projection, then again the world in woiaf is round and even the maester consider the idea that the world might be rounded at the north in the chapter of the schivering sea.

With these likely errors in mind, i was suprized to get a description of the bone mountains of going north to south for 500 league's. I don't know who did the brilliant work of measuring here lol, eitherway in my impression im not sure if the bone mountains even run north to south, and not Northwest to southeast, i wouldn't be surprized if a Westerosi had lost his bearing down there.

[thelittledragonthatcould]

Nice catch. Its a bit odd the Golden Tooth is where it is, seeing as it acts as a defense against foreign invasions. It looks like armies can get quite far before getting to GT.

Makes sense to me. It has been established that the Riverlands has no natural boundaries and that the Golden Tooth is the entrance to the mountain pass. Had it been the border then the Riverlands would have its natural defense.

I guess the land between the border the Golden Tooth is Westerland farmland which takes advantage of the the Red Fork dotted with Villages and smaller holdfasts.

Tywins plan was to have the Riverlords officially act first(as he had Clegane ride with no banners) so he could claim self defense to Robert if things got majorly out of hand.

[Yukle]

I think that this is meant to indicate the inconsistencies between the cartographers of the world. And no one has yet mapped it properly... at least, that's my guess. These maps also have the North being slightly smaller than the world maps have it.

On the matter of the North, although the maps set (which is also in the WOIAF app, if you don't want to spend as much money) includes maps that go further east than the ones in this book (which stop not long after the Dothraki Sea, compared with the maps which also reveal Ulthos), the maps in the book do go further north than the maps in the map set and the app. It seems that the North has a wide stretch of land or ice eastwards of the rest of Westeros. This may be the polar ice or it may be that Westeros is far larger than previously thought, although mostly uninhabitable.

[Moondancer]

These maps also have the North being slightly smaller than the world maps have it.

The book also states that the North takes up 1/3 of the continent, not 1/2 as it is widely believed.

[Free Northman Reborn]

The book also states that the North takes up 1/3 of the continent, not 1/2 as it is widely believed.

I would venture my personal guess again - (and this time I think I will be right), that that is Ran's own insert, again based on comments he has made on the forum before. Ran has commented before that by his pixel analysis the North covers closer to a third than a half of Westeros, in contrast to Robert's statement in Book 1 where he says that it is as big as the other six kingdoms combined.

The insert you quote above sounds suspciously similar to Ran's thoughts on the matter.

I will say, as I responded to Ran in the old thread where he raised this issue initially, that while a half is indeed not correct, being a bit of an exxageration, a third is also incorrect, being a slight understatement.

It would seem that the North - if you include all of the Neck, Cape Kraken, Skagos, Bear Island and everything up to the southern edge of Brandon's Gift, in fact covers close to 40% (38% if I recall the specific figures correctly) of Westeros. Considering that the New Gift was part of the historical North for 7800 of the 8000 years of its history, and that the Starks are apparently not happy with its annexation by Jahaerys, I am quite happy to count that as part of the North.

And even without the New Gift, the North is still around 37% of Westeros's territory. Which, while not half, is a bit more than a third.

if you want to really do a quick assessment, take the North and place it over the South. It covers quite a bit more than half of the South. Hence, it is quite a bit more than a third the size of the entire Westeros.

[Stannis's Lawyer]

Well, 37% is closer to 33.3% then 50%.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Well, 37% is closer to 33.3% then 50%.

Indeed. But a 5% difference out of a 2.7m square mile sized continent is still an area twice the size of England.