Best guess at Harrenhal's acreage?

[The Three Whores]

So, does anyone have a decent guess to the amount of acre's within Harrenhal's wall? I'm wondering how big a city would be reasonable to cram inside if it was cleared out.

The only thing we have an exact number for is the size of it's godswood, which alone is twenty acres in size. So taking that into consideration, would 200 acres be to much for the total? More or less?

Thanks.

[Blackfyre Bastard]

17 hours ago, The Three Whores said:

So, does anyone have a decent guess to the amount of acre's within Harrenhal's wall? I'm wondering how big a city would be reasonable to cram inside if it was cleared out.

The only thing we have an exact number for is the size of it's godswood, which alone is twenty acres in size. So taking that into consideration, would 200 acres be to much for the total? More or less?

Thanks.

It's stated that Harrenhal is three times the size of Winterfell, but I haven't been able to get that datum either.

I know is not canon, but check this link. It's about the construction of Harrenhal in Minecraft. There's a floor plan with scale. Notice that the godswood takes all the length of the castle; unfortunately the plan is incomplete, but probably is as much as a third of the total area.

ETA: The unit of the layout is in feet. I think it would suit better to the scale of Harrenhal if it was in yards. That would make the area of the castle (sans the godswood) around 75 acres.

[Raisin' Bran]

Some back of the envelope calculations and some (I think) reasonable assumptions tell me that Harrenhal is a minimum of 76 acres.

Here is my reasoning:

Harrenhall is comprised of 5 towers, a great hall (hall of 100 hearths), kitchens (as big as winterfell's great hall), Barracks, Godswood, flowstone yard, the bear pit, and the bath house

The following are assumptions I made about the various structures

5 huge towers: 5 acres. Average 1 acre a piece at the foot.

Great Hall: ~1.6 acres. 35 hearths by Arya's count. 1 hearth every 30 feet (guess) is 1050 feet inside perimeter. the walls are set up in a 1W:1.75L (guess) ratio making the Hall 190 feet wide by 335 feet long (approximate). Floor space is then almost 63,650 square feet, adding 5-foot thick walls (again, guess) is 69,000 square feet.

Kitchens: ~0.8 acres. Lets say half as big as the Great Hall (guess).

Barracks Hall: ~0.5 acres. Lets To house a garrison of 1,200 men (guess) you need space for 600 beds (assuming bunk-style barracks). Lets assume a 1-story building, 2 floors for common soldiers, and 1 floor for officers. Assume 1 officer per 25 men, makes 48 officers. Give each officer, on average, 225 square feet (15 feet x 15 feet) makes 10,800 square feet of living space for officers. Add on hall ways, council rooms, officer's mess, and privies, and you arrive at about 20,000 square feet.

Godswood: 20 acres

Flowstone Yard: ~1.5 acres. 1200 men need room to train. Assume 100 square feet per man (training half of soldiers at a time), 60,000 square feet.

Bear Pit: 1.0 - 3.3 acres. Bear pit is only 15 feet x 30 feet. Right? Nope. There are also 6 tiers of benches on each side. Guessing that each tier is 30 feet long, that's another 180 feet in each direction. So that's 390 feet x 375 feet. 146,250 square feet. We can also be conservative and say a tier is 15 feet extending the bear pit 90 feet in each direction. 41,000 square feet.

Bath House: ~0.4 acres. Half the size of the Kitchens, 130 feet x 130 feet. Its big, but not ridiculous.

Now the different buildings will require clear space between them and other buildings in the proximity. So I multiply the buildings' area by 4.5 to account for the clear space from buildings and the outer wall. I would say 6, but some of the buildings are already touching. Outside areas do not count in this calculation (Bear pit, Flowstone yard, Godswood).

Inner area is calculated to be approximately 58 acres.

Now, there is also the outer wall to consider. Arya says there were at least 12 murder holes going through the main gate. Assuming one murder hole every 10 feet would make the wall 130 feet thick (10 feet, hole1, 10 feet, hole2,...,hole12, 10 feet). 

Lets assume to be conservative that the shape of the outer wall is roughly circular. 58 acres would require a wall that is 5,600 feet long. If every soldier were on the wall that would be a man every 4.67 feet. Of course that is not the case in battles as there will be a lot going on at the time.

58 acres would have an area that was approximately 1800 feet in diameter. Add on 130 feet on both ends, increasing the circles diameter to 2050 feet. Harrenhal encompasses an area of roughly 76 acres.

Again 76 acres I think is conservative as I do not think we had a full documentation of all the buildings in Harrenhal.

 

 

[King Viserys Targaryen IV]

On 1/23/2016 at 8:06 PM, Raisin' Bran said:

Some back of the envelope calculations and some (I think) reasonable assumptions tell me that Harrenhal is a minimum of 76 acres.

Here is my reasoning:

Harrenhall is comprised of 5 towers, a great hall (hall of 100 hearths), kitchens (as big as winterfell's great hall), Barracks, Godswood, flowstone yard, the bear pit, and the bath house

The following are assumptions I made about the various structures

5 huge towers: 5 acres. Average 1 acre a piece at the foot.

Great Hall: ~1.6 acres. 35 hearths by Arya's count. 1 hearth every 30 feet (guess) is 1050 feet inside perimeter. the walls are set up in a 1W:1.75L (guess) ratio making the Hall 190 feet wide by 135 feet long (approximate). Floor space is then almost 63,650 square feet, adding 5-foot thick walls (again, guess) is 69,000 square feet.

Kitchens: ~0.8 acres. Lets say half as big as the Great Hall (guess).

Barracks Hall: ~0.5 acres. Lets To house a garrison of 1,200 men (guess) you need space for 600 beds (assuming bunk-style barracks). Lets assume a 1-story building, 2 floors for common soldiers, and 1 floor for officers. Assume 1 officer per 25 men, makes 48 officers. Give each officer, on average, 225 square feet (15 feet x 15 feet) makes 10,800 square feet of living space for officers. Add on hall ways, council rooms, officer's mess, and privies, and you arrive at about 20,000 square feet.

Godswood: 20 acres

Flowstone Yard: ~1.5 acres. 1200 men need room to train. Assume 100 square feet per man (training half of soldiers at a time), 60,000 square feet.

Bear Pit: 1.0 - 3.3 acres. Bear pit is only 15 feet x 30 feet. Right? Nope. There are also 6 tiers of benches on each side. Guessing that each tier is 30 feet long, that's another 180 feet in each direction. So that's 390 feet x 375 feet. 146,250 square feet. We can also be conservative and say a tier is 15 feet extending the bear pit 90 feet in each direction. 41,000 square feet.

Bath House: ~0.4 acres. Half the size of the Kitchens, 130 feet x 130 feet. Its big, but not ridiculous.

Now the different buildings will require clear space between them and other buildings in the proximity. So I multiply the buildings' area by 4.5 to account for the clear space from buildings and the outer wall. I would say 6, but some of the buildings are already touching. Outside areas do not count in this calculation (Bear pit, Flowstone yard, Godswood).

Inner area is calculated to be approximately 58 acres.

Now, there is also the outer wall to consider. Arya says there were at least 12 murder holes going through the main gate. Assuming one murder hole every 10 feet would make the wall 130 feet thick (10 feet, hole1, 10 feet, hole2,...,hole12, 10 feet). 

Lets assume to be conservative that the shape of the outer wall is roughly circular. 58 acres would require a wall that is 5,600 feet long. If every soldier were on the wall that would be a man every 4.67 feet. Of course that is not the case in battles as there will be a lot going on at the time.

58 acres would have an area that was approximately 1800 feet in diameter. Add on 130 feet on both ends, increasing the circles diameter to 2050 feet. Harrenhal encompasses an area of roughly 76 acres.

Again 76 acres I think is conservative as I do not think we had a full documentation of all the buildings in Harrenhal.

 

 

How does this compare to the Red Keep? The Red Keep and King's Landing?

[aryagonnakill#2]

2 hours ago, King Viserys Targaryen IV said:

How does this compare to the Red Keep? The Red Keep and King's Landing?

Jaime says that Harrenhall and the Rock dwarf all other castles, and he has certainly spent enough time at the Red Keep that it would be included.

[King Viserys Targaryen IV]

39 minutes ago, aryagonnakill#2 said:

Jaime says that Harrenhall and the Rock dwarf all other castles, and he has certainly spent enough time at the Red Keep that it would be included.

But by how much?

Is Harrenhal half as big as the Red Keep? Or bigger than the Red Keep but smaller than King's Landing as a whole?

[aryagonnakill#2]

1 minute ago, King Viserys Targaryen IV said:

But by how much?

Is Harrenhal half as big as the Red Keep? Or bigger than the Red Keep but smaller than King's Landing as a whole?

Idk, I can tell you he makes the comparison when he gets to Raventree hall.  He is thinking about how any castle other than Harrenhall or the Rock would look like a dinky little tower to Pia, who spent her life at Harrenhall.

[Jaak]

We have the ratio of total area between Harrenhal and Winterfell, and the acreages of both godswoods.

Going by the example guesstimate of 75 acres for Harrenhal, close to the total acreage of Moscow Kremlin (68 acres), we would get:

Harrenhal total 75 acres, godswood 20 acres, built up area 55 acres

Winterfell total 25 acres (stated that Harrenhal was 3 times bigger), godswood 3 acres (as stated), built up area 22 acres.

[Raisin' Bran]

On ‎1‎/‎26‎/‎2016 at 10:13 AM, King Viserys Targaryen IV said:

How does this compare to the Red Keep? The Red Keep and King's Landing?

The Red Keep is set up on Aegon's hill. That is a large area for hillside construction. The following is from the wiki.

Quote

Overall, the Keep is not particularly large, being smaller than Winterfell.

Kings Landing, however is said to be very populous. Again from the wiki,

Quote

King's Landing is extremely populous, but rather unsightly and dirty compared to other cities. Its population is estimated at more than 500,000, although this number varies during winters and in times of war, when people take shelter behind the city walls. George R. R. Martin has stated that the city is larger than Medieval London or Paris but smaller than Medieval Constantinople or Ancient Rome (each had a population of about 1,000,000).

If 500,000 people were to be housed in the space of 76 acres, and 640 acres per square mile, that equates to a population density of 4.2 million people per square mile (1.6 million per square kilometer). Present-day Manhattan (part of New York City) estimates a population density of just over 71,000 per square mile (27,000 per square kilometer), Toshima (the densest area of Tokyo) estimates a density of 56,000 per square mile (22,000 per square km). So 4.2 million per square mile is not reasonable.

Best guess for peak density of Medieval London (1.12 square miles) is 16,000 per square mile. Extrapolating that density, yields an area of 31.25 square miles (a circle approximately 6.3 miles in diameter) is required to house the people of Kings Landing.