How Big is the Planet Westeros is On?

[thecryptile]

From Tor.com, an estimate of the size of the World of ASOIAF, and the extent of unexplored territory.

Current understanding of Westeros and its size puts the distance between the Wall and the south coast of Dorne at 3000 miles (or 1000 leagues). Now, thanks to the revelation of the Known World map, some comparison to Earth, and some speculation, we can try and pin down just how big the planet is.

Let’s begin, using a handy tape measure and the real size map of the Known World. (Which is, of course, hanging on my wall at home because OOH, PRETTY.)

In inches, the distance from the wall to the south coast of Dorne is a very convenient 12, making each inch equivalent to 250 miles. The Known World map is 2 feet and 11 inches wide, minus the ornamental borders, totaling 8750 miles from east to west and 5750 miles from north to south.

The next thing we need to do is decide where the equator is on Planet Westeros. For the purposes of the forthcoming measurements, I’ve chosen the former site of the city of Valyria as being right on the equator. The lands to the north and south of it are clearly equatorial desert, jungle, and savannah, and there’s a certain poetry to having Valyria—the former center of civilization in A Song of Ice and Fire’s developed world—be literally in the center of the world.

(Also, we’ll redo the calculations later with the equator as the southern edge of the map.)

We now have a useful grid that we can overlay on the Known World, but we need one more arbitrary line to put an outer bound on that grid before we can estimate how big the planet is. Since the Known World map shows us the Shivering Sea and the Land of Always Winter, let’s decide where this planet’s “Arctic” Circle will be.

On Earth, the Arctic Circle is a a little north of the 66th latitudinal parallel, and as you head north the ecosystem is primarily comprised of tundra, then treeless permafrost, then ice. Since the Arctic is marked for its lack of trees, we’ll put Planet Westeros’ “Arctic Circle” at the northern edge of the Haunted Forest beyond the Wall.

For the purposes of this speculation, I’m assuming that the amount of polar ice in the world is equivalent to the amount present in Earth’s pre-industrial society, barring any Little Ice Ages. How extended winters and summer would affect Ice Ages, coastlines, and climate on Planet Westeros is a fascinating tangent to think about, but not entirely relevant to determining the size of the planet.

If you accept the equator and “Arctic Circle” where they are, this means that the planet that Westeros is on is smaller than Earth! To put it in numbers, Planet Westeros is only 89.51% the size of Earth.

With this percentage in hand, we can now figure out just how much of the world is “known” in A Song of Ice and Fire.

But first, some incidental numbers: On Earth, the distance from the Arctic circle to the North Pole is 1600 miles (roughly). 89.51% of that is 1432.16 miles.

Dropping the .16 for the sake of some more straightforward whole numbers, this makes Planet Westeros 5557 miles from equator to pole, which equals 11,114 miles from pole to pole. Earth is 12,416 miles from pole to pole and its equatorial circumference is 24,901 miles. Since Planet Westeros is 89.51% the size of Earth, its circumference is most likely 22,289 miles (rounding up).

The Known World map is 8750 miles across by 5750 miles tall, depicting 50,312,500 square miles. On Earth, you’d be depicting 25.54% of the planet, but Planet Westeros is smaller, so the Known World map is actually depicting 28.54% of the planet that Westeros is on.

The Arctic takes up 8% of the Earth, so let’s double that for the South Pole and say that Planet Westeros has 84% of mappable and explorable land. We’ve seen 28.54% of it, which means over half of the planet that George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire takes place on is still unexplored.

Lots of places for dragons and other terrors to hide, aren’t there?

http://www.tor.com/b...-westeros-is-on

What do you think of these estimates?

[yolkboy]

grrm said its a bit bigger than our own planet

[TheMysteriousOne]

That's wrong. GRRM said that 'Planetos' is slightly bigger than Earth.

[thecryptile]

from the article:

When the series first started, George R. R. Martin had envisioned the lands of Westeros as residing on a “super Earth,” a terrestrial planet with more mass than the Earth, more gravity, and a larger surface area. Martin hasn’t repeated this statement recently (in fact, I can no longer find the interview online in which he said that) leading one to think he was just thinking out loud and that this is not a hard and fast rule. Martin also had Jon Snow claim that Westeros was 10,000 leagues long in one of the early books, a number which the author himself has since debunked, so it seems that the distances and geography of the world haven’t actually been pinned down until recently.

[Spilly]

So would riding horseback from dorne to the wall be more like riding from the south coast of England to the North Coast of Scotland? Or Riding from South America to North America?

[TheMysteriousOne]

So would riding horseback from dorne to the wall be more like riding from the south coast of England to the North Coast of Scotland? Or Riding from South America to North America?

Westeros is WAY bigger than the UK. Riding from Dorne to the Wall would be like riding from the top of South America to the bottom to near the bottom of South America.

[thecryptile]

So would riding horseback from dorne to the wall be more like riding from the south coast of England to the North Coast of Scotland? Or Riding from South America to North America?

According to the article, somewhere in between the two extremes. More like going from NYC to LA, about 3000 miles.

But, I'm not sure on the math they used to calculate this figure from the maps in Lands of Ice and Fire

[Dr. Pepper]

Does anyone have their maps handy? If so, can someone measure the scale (which is the wall) to see if approx 250 miles equals one inch?

[TheMysteriousOne]

Accidental post

[Yukle]

Does anyone have their maps handy? If so, can someone measure the scale (which is the wall) to see if approx 250 miles equals one inch?

I have the maps. Given that the Wall is 300 leagues long, most measurements come from this. It's unclear if the maps are projections or flattened, though, but this is part of the world that they live in. There are no satellites to make accurate measurements. Neither Essos nor Westeros appears in its entirety on the maps and only a small section of Sothyros is visible. Most of the Land of Always Winter and East of the vast Dothraki sea is missing.

There are some assumptions that can be made, though.

Quarth is far too far east to be a trade capital without there being significant ports and cities that are also east. It cannot rely on the Free Cities for its wealth because it is a distrant trading hub. So it must trade heavily with Sothyros or areas further East that are not mapped within "the Known World." This isn't unusual; it's likely that traders in Quarth have maps of their known worlds that don't feature Westeros but have all of Essos.

Similarly, Westeros clearly covers different climate zones, so it must be huge. As to the size of the whole planet, though, it's basically impossible to tell because there are no maps showing the distance between Westeros and Essos travelling West instead of East.

[Free Northman]

The author of the article made a fundamental incorrect assumption by placing the equator over Valyria.

The deserts of Dorne and the Red Waste are far too close to Valyria for the equator to run through it. The equator is far more likely to run either through the Summer Isles or even around 500 miles south of the Summer Isles.

Like on our world the equator likely bisects Sothoryos (Africa). That immediately increases the size of the planet significantly.

I agree with the placement of the Arctic Circle at the Northern Edge of the Haunted Forest, which by the way again emphasizes that the North itself lies far South of the Arctic circle and is more akin to Northern Germany than the Scandinavia that some like to portray it as.

[Errant Bard]

GRRM also said that this is Fantasy, not SF, and the climates don't have to make sense.

Westeros could be on a disc carried by four elephant on the back of a giant turtle for all that I care, it has zero incidence on the story.

[Free Northman]

Errant Bard

That's misconstruing what he said.

He said the cause of the lopsided seasons has a magical explanation. The rest of the worldbuilding retains its internal consistency, including the climate zones, which are unlinked to the length of the magical seasons.

[Yukle]

Westeros could be on a disc carried by four elephant on the back of a giant turtle for all that I care, it has zero incidence on the story.

That's a good point.

From the perspective of those within the story, it doesn't matter especially since there's no real way to travel the world within a lifetime and have time to map it. Those who've tried looking for new lands across the seas have disappeared.

[Errant Bard]

He said the cause of the lopsided seasons has a magical explanation. The rest of the worldbuilding retains its internal consistency, including the climate zones, which are unlinked to the length of the magical seasons.

But it's consistent whatever he writes, since it's Fantasy he doesn't have to conform to real physics. And when I look the world rivers, deserts, and mountains placement I'm not too certain it does.

[Free Northman]

The climate zones are important insofar as it affects the fertility, population sizes and ultimately the political and military power of various regions.

E.G. By incorrectly interpreting the summer snows in the North as an indicationthat the North equates to some kind of Arctic ice hell many readers have underestimated the North's true agricultural and by extension population levels.

The truth is that the Gift which is on the Northern edge of the North is described as good farmland and the Wall itself is hundreds of miles south of the Arctic circle.

So the parts of the North that are as much as 1000 miles south of the Wall are actually closer to a central European environment than even a north European one.

And the only areas that are Scandinavean in nature are in fact the Lands Beyond the Wall, with extreme southern Scandinavia perhaps equating to the Gift and Umber lands.

It is for good reason that Davos desribes the winds at White Harbor as a warm bath compared to those at the Wall. Much of the North lies in very temparate climate zones.

The occasional summer snows merely reflect the fact that the magically extended seasons bring about greater variation within each season than would be the case under normal conditions. It doesb't mean that the North has to be located as far North as would be required in our world to allow for summer snowfalls.

The arctic treeline and other data like the agricultural potential of the Gift clearly refute this.

[Errant Bard]

GRRM has lemon trees growing at the Neck's latitude, man.

[Free Northman]

Hehe. I'm no lemon tree expert so can't comment on that.

[Ghost Wrytre]

I have the maps. Given that the Wall is 300 leagues long, most measurements come from this.

Slow your roll. You probably didn't mean to say "leagues" there, but just so we're all clear: the Wall is 300 MILES (100 leagues) long.

[The Dornishman's Wife]

The author of the article made a fundamental incorrect assumption by placing the equator over Valyria.

That's my biggest gripe with that piece as well. I mean, I really admire the author's premise of using trigonometry to flesh out a world of fantasy, and even if it has no impact on the story, I find it interesting what results they'd arrive at....

... but if your result relies on one arbitrary and actually not very plausible assumption that's justified by nothing better than "oh, deserts mean equator" (a hard sell on Earth, much harder on a planet with a completely different climate), then it's not worth all that much.

The true worth of the piece to me is that it makes it pretty plausible that 89% Earthsize is a lower bound for the size of Planetos. That does not improve the lower bounds we already have from GRRM, but it's nice that independent methods arrive at such a result.