Is Westeros too big?

[John Doe]

I think most of the problems users on here have with the world building are due to the size of the continent, as it raises many questions. Like how a feudal society with so few families works in this setting, or  how exactly the climate zones work, or how there are so few cities even though Westeros is roughly the size of europe (I know there weren't many cities back then, but more than five in the high/late medieval age, a time that's roughly comparable to the setting of asoiaf), as well as questions concerning the number of soldiers a house should be able to afford based on their population densitiy, which often doesn't reflect the numbers in the books at all. It could even be questioned how the Targaryens managed to keep their realms in line for so long after their dragons were gone, without any of the kingdoms breaking off. So, do you agree that Martin should have made the continent smaller to avoid such confusion? Or do you think the problems could have been just as easily solved in a different way?

[Lord Ravenstark]

No, Westeros world is not like ours. They had thousands of years to specialize in the way their live. It is just a foreign world. Dragons shouldn't be able to breathe fire, not the dead rise. It is part of the fantasy.

[John Doe]

5 minutes ago, Lord Ravenstark said:

No, Westeros world is not like ours. They had thousands of years to specialize in the way their live. It is just a foreign world. Dragons shouldn't be able to breathe fire, not the dead rise. It is part of the fantasy.

There is a difference between bringing in a new explanation (magic for the undead and dragons), and lacking an explanation. Some of the inconsisties don't have magic as an excuse. 

[Victarion Chainbreaker]

Westeros was based on Medieval England, which was overwhelmingly rural (even for that time.) London was the only city, with three times the population of the next largest settlement.

[Thuckey]

I think for this reason they make it seem on the show that Westeros is actually a lot smaller than in the books. I had no idea the true scale of the land until reading the books and it seemed pretty big to me. Like as if all the families and characters could easily just have been part of one of the kingdoms instead of spread out through 7. However the focus tends to be on only the major families so there are most likely thousands more not mentioned.

 

 

[leonardof]

George Martin has said the though of Westeros as being as large as South America. I, too, believe this is too large for a kingdom of the Middle Ages. We could say that's the way of fantasy, but I have a better explanation. George Martin has already admitted he's not very good with how big things are (e.g. the Wall). He thought of a large kingdom and then enlarged it even more, but he overdone it.

PS: I once examined the distance between the ever-winter land and Dorne, provided that Westeros is as large as South America, and it roughtly matches the distances between polar caps and deserts in Earth. Planetos also has years with 365 days and moon cycles of 28 days (or at least people have been able to build timelines with these premisses), gravity similar to ours, a sky with as many planets (wanderers) as ours, and even a very similar flora and fauna (including animals men may have helped into extinction). The point is, it does make sense think about Planetos in our terms (except, you know, that we are discussing stuff which was made up.)

[slant]

its a simplified feudal society 

it is bigger than England http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Geography

and comparing how big westeros is compared to the rest of the known world, it seems as if planetos itself is much bigger than earth

 

yup, guess making it smaller solves some of the problems

[Forlong the Fat]

3 hours ago, John Doe said:

I think most of the problems users on here have with the world building are due to the size of the continent, as it raises many questions. Like how a feudal society with so few families works in this setting, or  how exactly the climate zones work, or how there are so few cities even though Westeros is roughly the size of europe (I know there weren't many cities back then, but more than five in the high/late medieval age, a time that's roughly comparable to the setting of asoiaf), as well as questions concerning the number of soldiers a house should be able to afford based on their population densitiy, which often doesn't reflect the numbers in the books at all. It could even be questioned how the Targaryens managed to keep their realms in line for so long after their dragons were gone, without any of the kingdoms breaking off. So, do you agree that Martin should have made the continent smaller to avoid such confusion? Or do you think the problems could have been just as easily solved in a different way?

It seems to me that the populace and development in Westeros have been hindered by the seasons.  There are repeated references to the fact that, during bad winters, many people starve and die.  How would a society develop if, every 7-10 years, something as difficult as the Westerosi winter occurred?  For one thing, the population would be sparse, and cities would develop slowly, if at all.  Certain areas would be all but uninhabitable.  In Westeros, particularly in the north, settlements of any size occur only where there is geographical support (Winterfell is on a hot-springs and White Harbor is at the most protected port).  That seems to make sense based on the climate.

[aryagonnakill#2]

Ya the Westerosi winters would definitely make the population more rural because it would really reduce any food surplus's.

[leonardof]

23 hours ago, Forlong the Fat said:

It seems to me that the populace and development in Westeros have been hindered by the seasons.  There are repeated references to the fact that, during bad winters, many people starve and die.  How would a society develop if, every 7-10 years, something as difficult as the Westerosi winter occurred?  For one thing, the population would be sparse, and cities would develop slowly, if at all.  Certain areas would be all but uninhabitable.  In Westeros, particularly in the north, settlements of any size occur only where there is geographical support (Winterfell is on a hot-springs and White Harbor is at the most protected port).  That seems to make sense based on the climate.

Maybe that's why Westeros is stuck in the Middle Ages for thousands of years! ;)

[Lychnidos]

On 12/12/2015 at 2:16 AM, Lychnidos said:

On the matter of area, using this image and the length of the Wall of 300 miles, stated here, I calculated the area of the Seven Kingdoms proper(not all of Westeros) to be circa 9.25 million km^2.

Just quoting myself on the size of Westeros, south of the Wall. 

[kimim]

On 2/29/2016 at 10:44 AM, Victarion Chainbreaker said:

Westeros was based on Medieval England, which was overwhelmingly rural (even for that time.) London was the only city, with three times the population of the next largest settlement.

Medieval England is tiny compared to Westeros, which is supposedly the size of South America. Cut the North and beyond the Wall bits, and it's somewhat more reasonable, the size of Brazil. Even so, it's pretty damned huge, something like six times the size of the Carolingian Empire, which fell apart soon after the death of Charlemagne. Westeros, though, manages to outlast the death of Targ dragons by over a century, I think. It's quite ridiculously large.

[Neds Secret]

My major concern with the size of Westeros is trying to imagine the logistics involved in actually marching all the armies around in all the wars. They would be doing so,so much walking for so long that it would almost be like a relief to actually spot the other army or host and do battle. It's just a really really long way from Winterfell to the reach or Dorne and I gather that most of the army is infantry and Westeros is so large. I think of when Robb Stark calls his banners and they gather at Winterfell and I imagine the feeling that in a couple of months after we walk a few thousand kilometres we will get to have a battle for a couple of hours, it would seem to me to be such a mission. After a war even, it would feel like a mighty effort to get yourself home.

[Jon Fossoway]

So? South America is not that big.

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

Yeah sure. To me the bigger problem is the extended political stability. One family ruling the North for 8,000 years, with a (presumably) continuous bloodline? Give over.

 

But then again, who cares?

[Jon Fossoway]

16 minutes ago, Grody Brody said:

Yeah sure. To me the bigger problem is the extended political stability. One family ruling the North for 8,000 years, with a (presumably) continuous bloodline? Give over.

 

But then again, who cares?

We do.

Stark is currently the Great House of the north, technically after Aegon's conquest, but I doubt it was like that in the continuos 8 thousand years. They do were one of the major factions of the north, and the one that finally prevailed. The Boltons are reportedly the last House who bent the knee about 1.000 years before the conquest. The Boltons burned Winterfell twice, so we know that Stark dominance over the north was far from uncontested. The Starks defeated the Barrow Kings, Marsh Kings, the Glovers, Umbers, and several other petty kings, married into their families and made them their bannermen, and that takes time. I am assuming that the Starks were the major power in the north, relatively uncontested, for about 1,000 years. That seem like a long time span, but we do have historical examples: the byzantines lasted about the same.

[leonardof]

On 01/03/2016 at 8:25 PM, Neds Secret said:

My major concern with the size of Westeros is trying to imagine the logistics involved in actually marching all the armies around in all the wars. They would be doing so,so much walking for so long that it would almost be like a relief to actually spot the other army or host and do battle. It's just a really really long way from Winterfell to the reach or Dorne and I gather that most of the army is infantry and Westeros is so large. I think of when Robb Stark calls his banners and they gather at Winterfell and I imagine the feeling that in a couple of months after we walk a few thousand kilometres we will get to have a battle for a couple of hours, it would seem to me to be such a mission. After a war even, it would feel like a mighty effort to get yourself home.

Although I agree the size of Westeros makes warfare much more difficult, what I find most implausible is the bureaucracy. With the management practices and communication technology of the Middle Ages, it would be really hard to keep such an enormous kingdom together.

[leonardof]

On 02/03/2016 at 10:19 PM, Grody Brody said:

Yeah sure. To me the bigger problem is the extended political stability. One family ruling the North for 8,000 years, with a (presumably) continuous bloodline? Give over. [...]

On 02/03/2016 at 10:34 PM, King Merrett I Frey said:

[...] I am assuming that the Starks were the major power in the north, relatively uncontested, for about 1,000 years. That seem like a long time span, but we do have historical examples: the byzantines lasted about the same.

We should compare Westeros to Medieval England, not to the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine empire lasted so long because it was the continuation of (a part of) the Roman Empire. Westeros works more like the rest of Europe, where the Roman Empire broke down, economy receded, literacy disappeared (except in part of the Chuch) and so on. When Europe started to recover from the fall of the Roman Empire, that is, in High/Late Middle Ages, Europe got to where Westeros is in the books, but few centuries latter the Modern Ages began.

What George Martin did was to give Westeros a really long medieval period, coming right from an Iron Age with no equivalent to the Roman Empire (except for Valyria, in Essos) and with no hint of a transition to the Modern Ages anytime soon. If we can attribute such long Middle Ages to the high fantasy genre, why not the political continuity?

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

I don't know that the Byzantine empire is a great example, since their territory gradually receded over that 1,000 year span, although admittedly I'm pushing past the limits of my knowledge on the subject here.

But that's the point: you can't find a realistic example of thousand year political continuity because the world is simply too chaotic to allow it. There are too many wars, rivals, intrigues, and so on.

I consider having been Kings of Winter for thousands of years (per the wiki) to be political continuity, even though their rule was contested. But in the real world, it's unlikely that it wouldn't have been successfully contested at some point, and the Starks all killed or disenfranchised.

Which brings me to the second facet of my point, which I didn't make clear: it's not just the political continuity in terms of one family ruling the North for thousands of years (and one family the Vale, one family the Westerlands, one family the Iron Islands). It's the unlikeliness of internal continuity in the noble families of Westeros. Are there noble houses in the real world that can trace their lineage back thousands of years? I don't doubt some of them claim to, but is the line really unbroken? Of course not. Realistically, the Starks of "today" ought to be no more related to the Starks of yesteryear than anybody else in the North.

But there's that problem: "realistically". Frankly GRRM has gone above and beyond the call of duty in terms of world-building, so I think it's perfectly forgiveable that he's presented a relatively simplified world history.

[Neds Secret]

On 29 February 2016 at 3:34 AM, slant said:

its a simplified feudal society 

it is bigger than England http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Geography

and comparing how big westeros is compared to the rest of the known world, it seems as if planetos itself is much bigger than earth

 

yup, guess making it smaller solves some of the problems

To make logistical sense it needs to be smaller, much smaller, however it's a fantasy novel and as such I need to suspend my disbelief. It just irks me to think of say,  Winterfell declaring war on Dorne, can you imagine how long it would take, truly, by the time the army has marched half way the circumstances could have changed completely. When I look at the map and imagine the tower of joy, and then Ned supposedly surviving everything that happened both physically and emotionally and then deciding to travel even further south to starfall to return Dawn then I feel he must have had extremwly strong motivations to do so, from Starfall back to Winterfell is such a monumental trek it belies belief, I just try not to think about it too much!