64 replies to this topic

[Rodrik of Dorne]

I have a few doubts concerning the geography of the northern lands. I think the upcoming book (a World of Ice and Fire) will help me, but maybe some of you guys can do the same.

- First, wheres the Acorn Whater? Is it the river that runs into the White Knife?
- Wheres Ramsgate mentioned in the books? The place is in the HBO map. Who rules over it?
- Is there any estimate of the North's area, in square miles (considering the wall's length of 300 miles)?

[Free Northman]

Rodrik the Andal, on 10 June 2011 - 11:58 PM, said:

I have a few doubts concerning the geography of the northern lands. I think the upcoming book (a World of Ice and Fire) will help me, but maybe some of you guys can do the same.

- First, wheres the Acorn Whater? Is it the river that runs into the White Knife?
- Wheres Ramsgate mentioned in the books? The place is in the HBO map. Who rules over it?
- Is there any estimate of the North's area, in square miles (considering the wall's length of 300 miles)?

Using the Wall's length of 300 miles, and breaking the North into roughly three squarish portions - (the big middle portion, and the two smaller portions north and south of it respectively) you can easily calculate a conservative surface area for the North of about 1.5 million square miles.

To put it in context, that is bigger than France, Germany, Britain, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Poland and Greece COMBINED. In fact, after adding all of those countries surface areas together, you can still add another France before approximately equalling the size of the North.

It is absolutely HUGE.

[Cozur]

I don't think that's right...

[mor2]

the numbers or the map? because the numbers are ok, it's easily the size of more than 10 square wall's(300 miles) and considering that France size is  21300 square miles, it makes it more than four times the size of France.  

at the same time, from a look at the map, it seems to be the size of Great Britain :/

[Rodrik of Dorne]

So, the North is bigger than Western Europe? I don't think its right. I thought it was bigger than Scandinavia, but not that big.

Edit:
- Are you including the Neck?
- Are you including the lands north of the Wall?

Edit #2:
I just used this map (with a grid) to calculate, and its like 503437 square miles, not including the Neck and the lands north of the Wall. That's like Texas, New Mexico and Arizona put together. Its big, but not that big.

Edited by Rodrik the Andal, 12 August 2011 - 10:41 AM.

[mor2]

I am pretty sure my estimation was right. to make it more precise for you, I just took the latest adwd map of the north and used some selection magic, selecting everything north of the neck up the wall, including bear island, not including the gift, the new gift or skagos. I got about 230,000 square pixels and the wall is 150 pixels, we know that the wall is 300miles, so the north is 920,000 square miles.

which is 3.5 times the size of texas or france...

[Rodrik of Dorne]

mordin999, on 12 August 2011 - 11:11 AM, said:

I am pretty sure my estimation was right. to make it more precise for you, I just took the latest adwd map of the north and used some selection magic, selecting everything north of the neck up the wall, including bear island, not including the gift, the new gift or skagos. I got about 230,000 square pixels and the wall is 150 pixels, we know that the wall is 300miles, so the north is 920,000 square miles.

which is 3.5 times the size of texas or france...

Including the Neck and the lands north of the Wall?

[mor2]

mordin999, on 12 August 2011 - 11:11 AM, said:

I am pretty sure my estimation was right. to make it more precise for you, I just took the latest adwd map of the north and used some selection magic, selecting everything north of the neck, up to the wall, including bear island, not including the gift, the new gift and skagos. I got about 230,000 square pixels and the wall is 150 pixels, we know that the wall is 300miles, so the north is 920,000 square miles.

which is 3.5 times the size of texas or france...

Edited by mordin999, 12 August 2011 - 11:41 AM.

[Rodrik of Dorne]

Thanks for calling my attention, I was too busy.

Edited by Rodrik the Andal, 12 August 2011 - 12:05 PM.

[Jon AS]

Rodrik the Andal, on 12 August 2011 - 10:18 AM, said:

So, the North is bigger than Western Europe? I don't think its right. I thought it was bigger than Scandinavia, but not that big.

It's easy to get confused by the size of Westeros (and Martin likes to keep distances and travel times vague), but it's supposed to be a continent comparable to South America.

[mor2]

it's confusing, because for such a huge place it feels very small, although it's posible that 'I know nothing' of middivel times


btw rodrick, about Ramsgate haveyou seen this?

[Rodrik of Dorne]

mordin999, on 12 August 2011 - 05:09 PM, said:

it's confusing, because for such a huge place it feels very small, although it's posible that 'I know nothing' of middivel times


btw rodrick, about Ramsgate haveyou seen this?

Yeah. I would like to know more about the place, which House rules it, for example, but I guess we have to wait for Winds of Winter.

I don't know if A World of Ice and Fire can offer I the political details I want, I mean, the seats, words and heraldry of all the Houses mentioned in the books, and of all the houses only mentioned by GRRM outside the books. Well, I dare dream about that.

Regards.

[Auska]

From King's Landing to either Winterfell or the Wall was 1000 leagues, which is 3000 miles or over 4800 km.

[Free Northman]

Of course you have to include the Neck and Cape Kraken west of it. It is part of the Stark ruled lands, just like Skagos and Bear Island.

Altogether the North covers in excess of a million square miles. That is 5 times the size of France, and very close to the size of the entire Western Europe.

[Rodrik of Dorne]

Yeah, Free Northman is right, I admit it. Its 3,885,000 square kilometers wide. Compare it with the European part of Russia, with its 3,960,000 km2 area (Europe total area is 10,180,000 km2).

Now I wonder if Westeros really has the area of South America (17,840,000 km2), since the North is supposed to be almost half of the continent. Is Westeros, like, 2250 miles (around 5827 km) from the Wall to the south coast of Dorne?

[Winterfell is Burning]

Jon AS, on 12 August 2011 - 12:08 PM, said:

It's easy to get confused by the size of Westeros (and Martin likes to keep distances and travel times vague), but it's supposed to be a continent comparable to South America.

If it is, then the North would be bigger than Brazil, which is bigger than the USA if you remove Alaska.

[Rodrik of Dorne]

Winterfell is Burning, on 30 August 2011 - 05:05 PM, said:

If it is, then the North would be bigger than Brazil, which is bigger than the USA if you remove Alaska.

Brasil has 8,514,877 km2. Contiguous US has 7,663,941.7 km2.

The North has "only" 3,885,000 km2.

So, I do not think Westeros has the same area of South America.

EDIT: Hey, Free Northman, do you have calculations for the whole of Westeros?

Edited by Rodrik the Andal, 30 August 2011 - 05:54 PM.

[Werthead]

Rodrik the Andal, on 30 August 2011 - 11:14 AM, said:

Now I wonder if Westeros really has the area of South America (17,840,000 km2), since the North is supposed to be almost half of the continent. Is Westeros, like, 2250 miles (around 5827 km) from the Wall to the south coast of Dorne?

Westeros is the length of South America, not the area. Martin says 'size' as a shorthand, but that is not accurate. Using the Wall as a scale bar, Westeros is almost exactly 3,000 miles from the Wall to the south coast of Dorne. South America is about 4,400 miles long north to south. If we assume 1,400 miles or more of territory north of the Wall, that comparison works. However, Westeros is usually* around 900 miles wide at best, whilst South America is over 3,000 miles across at its widest point.

So Westeros is not the area of South America in size, but the length. If it was area, because of the narrowness of the continent for the most part, the distances between locations would be somewhere beyond ludicrous. As it stands, it's approximately 1,500 miles from Winterfell to King's Landing, which feels about right to me.


* In AFFC the south coast of Dorne is said to be 400 leagues (1,200 miles) wide, which seems difficult to make work. However, if you assume GRRM meant that south coast of Westeros, including the part of the south coast west of the Red Mountains (including Oldtown), it does more or less reach 1,200 miles wide, and is the widest point of the continent.

[voodooqueen126]

I know this might be totally random. but I would love it if the Poole's lands where in the South West of the North in a similar location to Blackpool perhaps even called "Bluepoole".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackpool
can you see how that would be awesome looking at the map in ADWD. for the Poole family lands to be on that river that is between the Rills and the Stoney Shore...

Edited by voodooqueen126, 15 October 2011 - 07:25 AM.

[Free Northman]

Based on the map of the North and the South in the books, it would seem that the North is approximately two thirds the size of the South. That would mean that the North covers 40% of the land area of the Seven Kingdoms.

Therefore, if the North is about 1.2 million square miles in size, then Westeros as a whole is about 3 million square miles in size. That's Westeros south of the Wall.

Interestingly, from information in DWD, it would seem that some of the Great Bannermen to Ned Stark - such as the Umbers and the Manderleys - each effectively rule areas in their own right that are almost as large as some of the other Seven Kingdoms.

For example, Jon mentions to Stannis that the Kingsroad runs along the lands of the Umbers for 100 leagues (that's 300 miles). Looking at the map, that means the Umbers rule an area almost as large as the Riverlands.

And Wyman Manderley says that he holds sway over an area down to Widow's Watch and Horsehead Cape to the White Knife and Ramsgate - or something like that. The point is, this is as big as the Westerlands ruled by Tywin Lannister.

And the Neck and Cape Kraken next to it covers an area almost the size of the entire Vale of Arryn.

Basically, if you take out Dorne and the Stormlands, then the North would cover the rest of the South.

Edited by Free Northman, 06 November 2011 - 08:09 AM.