How did the Stormlands survive for so long??

[Canon Claude]

I can understand why most of the kingdoms exist (even the Riverlands in their form) but the more I think about it, the less sense it makes that the Stormlands lasted as long as they did. They're surrounded by enemies on all their borders, be it the Dornish, Reachmen, Riverlords, or pirates from across the sea. Their territory is small, which means they have few forces, which isn't good however highly trained in war they might be. Also, their lands have no natural defences like the Vale or Dorne. And they have no cities in comparison with the Reach, which by all accounts would have swallowed up the Stormlands ages ago. They're richer, better equipped, and they have far larger armies. Hell, I bet House Hightower  alone could put most of the Stormlords to flight.

[elder brother jonothor dar]

Plenty of examples in real life of smaller nations surviving next to strong neighbours.

The boarders change with time but should the Reach invade the Stormlands they leave themselves exposed to Dorne Ironborn and Westerlands, it is actually in their self interest to intervene.  Britain always moved to prevent its rivals from expanding into smaller nations less they grew too powerful 

[Nihlus]

3 hours ago, Canon Claude said:

I can understand why most of the kingdoms exist (even the Riverlands in their form) but the more I think about it, the less sense it makes that the Stormlands lasted as long as they did. They're surrounded by enemies on all their borders, be it the Dornish, Reachmen, Riverlords, or pirates from across the sea. Their territory is small, which means they have few forces, which isn't good however highly trained in war they might be. Also, their lands have no natural defences like the Vale or Dorne. And they have no cities in comparison with the Reach, which by all accounts would have swallowed up the Stormlands ages ago. They're richer, better equipped, and they have far larger armies. Hell, I bet House Hightower  alone could put most of the Stormlords to flight.

1. The Stormlands used to be bigger, consisting of their current territory plus most of the Crownlands, parts of the Reach, and a good chunk of the Riverlands.

2. The Stormlands are heavily forested and presumably heavily fortified with castles and other forts. Combine that with a martial culture and their enemies being just as surrounded as they are, and their survival is perfectly plausible.

The Stormlands are basically medieval Germany, back when Germany was highly martial and more heavily forested (as in "some areas are literally impassable without bulldozers" heavy) and relatively thinly populated compared to e.g. France (up until the 15th century France was twice as populous as Germany). Starting from their current territory the Storm Kings expanded in every direction; the Durrandon super-kingdom controlled essentially the entire eastern half of southern Westeros for a while, and it held these lands for centuries. They had over-expanded, however, because now they shared hostiles borders with all six of the other Kingdoms. The Reach gets away with having four powerful neighbors because it’s the most fertile part of Westeros and is very densely populated. The old Storm Kingdom’s westward expansion, however, meant it wasn’t just fighting its traditional enemies of the Reach and Dorne: now it had to defend its conquests against the Westerlands, the Vale, the North, and particularly the Iron Islands pressing from the west — meaning they were often hard-pressed to keep their gains and presumably had constantly shifting borders and alliances with petty kingdoms.

This is much like what happened to the medieval Holy Roman Empire – centered around Germany (Stormlands equivalent), but also trying to hold on to northeastern parts of modern France and the Low Countries (Riverlands equivalent) and northern Italy (central/northern Italy = Crownlands equivalent) from the "true" French kings (rest of France = Reach equivalent), fighting Slavs to the east and Danes/Norwegians (Iron Islands equivalent) to the north. Its borders were so amorphous, and faced so many powerful rivals on every side, that its lands got chipped away over time. To bring this back to Westeros, three generations before the Targaryen Conquest King Harwyn Hoare led the Ironborn to fully conquer the Riverlands from the Stormlands (equivalent to the Vikings conquering what it now northern France and raiding the Low Countries, though in anachronistic order obviously). In the next generation his son kicked them out of the northern half of the future Crownlands, while the Gardener Kings of the Reach from the southwest chipped away at their lands on the upper Mander, and the Dornish edged them back in the Marches. This mirrors the HRE's long history of wars across a poorly defined border to the west with France (the Reach).

[falcotron]

3 hours ago, Canon Claude said:

Also, their lands have no natural defences like the Vale or Dorne.

We're told that the Dornish Marches are an effective buffer zone between the Stormlands and their enemies in the Reach and Dorne. The Marches themselves were traded between the three realms for many centuries, with the Stormlands gradually losing out to their rivals (you can see on a map that the area is mostly part of the Reach today), but it was always rare that anyone could push past them.

We're also told that most of the Stormlands is harsh mountains, stony shores, and verdant forests, which sounds a lot easier to defend than, say, the Riverlands' vast fields.

They often did control land farther north, at one point even most or all of the Riverlands, and of course that land is mostly riverine fields and much harder to defend, but that's exactly the land they lost to the Iron Islanders, and it's not part of what's considered the Stormland today.

[John Doe]

The Stormlands used to be a lot bigger since the crownlands were once part of the Stormlands. Dorne is the least densely populated kingdom anyway and the Riverlands are too devided to pose a threat, so the only danger comes from the Reach, which isn't as unified as most other kingdoms either and has the added problem of having Ironborn, dornish, westerman and Riverlanders at their doorsteps, so they can't only focus on one kingdom most of the time.

 

Plus they're just good warriors who can punch beyond their weight.