Atlas of Ice and Fire

[McGuv19]

On 3/18/2017 at 2:49 PM, Werthead said:

Geographic Map 13: The Crownlands

Rambton is shown as a place on the island of Sweetport, however there is no confirmation in the books that the seat of House Rambton is called this. 

Is this written because the suffix ’-ton’ translates from Old English to settlement/estate? So Ramb-ton may mean ‘settlement of rams’ which would tie in with House Rambton’s sigil anyway. So House Rambton would actually be named after their seat of ‘Ram-town’.

An example of this suffix in the book series is Harrenton being called Harrentown, and named after Harren the Black. This shows that in Westeros, ‘ton’ can translate to settlement/town, just as it does in Old English.

This just goes to show the level of detail and thought Martin puts even into the tiniest details and specifications.

But well done on the map series! I am keen on history and geography, so this series made a great read!

[Werthead]

17 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Yep. Good job. 

Now to test these territorial sizes against population estimates to consider the comparative population densities.

For example, Dorne is less than a third the North’s size, and mostly desert. So if these two regions have roughly similar population densities the North should have three times Dorne’s population.

The Stormlands has less than a fifth the North’s territory and is confirmed by the World Book as being sparsely populated by southron standards. Even if it has twice the North’s population density, the North will have 2.5 times as many people as the Stormlands.

The Westerlands is barely one sixth the North’s size. So even if it had 5 times the North’s population density, the North would still have a larger population.

To fit these numbers into a consistent overall picture, I calculate regional populations of approximately :

North - 5.5 million - 5 per square mile

West - 4.5 million - 24 per square mile

Stormlands - 2.5 million - 12 per square mile

Dorne - 2.25 million - 7 per square mile

EDIT

Note that army sizes are impacted greatly by wealth and logistical capacity, so in the case of the West a 4.5m population would merely require a mobilisation rate of 1.25% to exceed 50k troop numbers quite easily.

Looking at the figures and comparing them to real medieval figures, I think we might have to consider that 1% mobilisation rate rule-of-thumb (although not unreasonable as a premise) to be too high. I think if we switched to 0.5%, that effectively doubles the population of each region which I think works much better.

Otherwise Westeros would be so sparsely populated as a whole it would be untenable. The Reach is twice the size of France with only a bit more than half the population (if we take 1300 as a base date, it's far worse if we choose 1400 or 1500).

I was doing this exercise for Wheel of Time where the continent is much bigger and the figures are also fairly low, but at least there the dwindling population levels are a key part of the plot.

[Werthead]

12 hours ago, Loose Bolt said:

PS. Calling Finland a Scandinavian country is as good idea than going a pub full of drunken Irishmen and calling them loyal subjects of Queen of England. Finland might have been part of Sweden until 1808. But we are not that anymore. For that reason I used term Nordic country when I talked about group of countries including both Sweden and Finland.

This is all true, but it is a very common mistake here to say that the Scandinavian countries are Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland (sometimes Iceland gets thrown in for some reason). I correct this when it comes up and people are genuinely baffled at the distinction.

But yes, it is it the same thing as calling Ireland part of the British Isles or, worse, part of the UK.

Quote

 

Rambton is shown as a place on the island of Sweetport, however there is no confirmation in the books that the seat of House Rambton is called this. 

 

Oh yeah, that was a bit of artistic licence. In fact, saying that Sweetport was an island was an artistic call as well. I couldn't find another point on the mainland that fitted, as Duskendale and KL were supposed to be the only viable mainland ports in the region.

The -ton suffix I generally take to mean town, as it does in many places here in the UK, as with Barrowton and Tumbleton.

[The Wondering Wolf]

31 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Oh yeah, that was a bit of artistic licence. In fact, saying that Sweetport was an island was an artistic call as well. I couldn't find another point on the mainland that fitted, as Duskendale and KL were supposed to be the only viable mainland ports in the region.

If I remember correctly, there is no proper reason to assume the Rambtons are sworn to the Sunglasses. I know the wiki has stated that for years, but I have no idea how the editor(s) came to this conclusion. Actually the Citadel lists the Rambtons as bannermen of King's Landing, just like the Chytterlings and Masseys. Since the Sunglasses are sworn to Dragonstone, the Rambtons are not their bannermen for sure.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

If I remember correctly, there is no proper reason to assume the Rambtons are sworn to the Sunglasses. I know the wiki has stated that for years, but I have no idea how the editor(s) came to this conclusion. Actually the Citadel lists the Rambtons as bannermen of King's Landing, just like the Chytterlings and Masseys. Since the Sunglasses are sworn to Dragonstone, the Rambtons are not their bannermen for sure.

That's an interesting point. The cited chapter in ACoK only says that the Rambtons defended the sept on Dragonstone and Lord Sunglass renounced Stannis's cause when they were killed, but that does not require that the Rambtons are sworn to the Sunglasses. That means that Rambton has no real need to be near Sweetport.

@Ran any thoughts on this one?

[Werthead]

Area analysis of regions in Essos.

Interesting that mapped Essos comes to around 12 million square miles. It we take GRRM's claim that the continent is in the same ballpark size as Eurasia (21 million square miles), the unmapped portion of Essos comes out at around 9 million miles, or larger than the entire continent of Westeros.

[TheBlackDragonWillReturn]

On 3/29/2016 at 2:21 AM, Werthead said:

The older thread on this topic got swallowed up in the forum update, so here's an updated version.

I've been thinking for a while that an Atlas of ASoIaF, covering everything from demographics to religion to languages to military campaigns and geographical landforms, would be really cool, such as what Karen Wynn Fonstad did for the works of Anne McCaffrey, Stephen Donaldson and J.R.R. Tolkien before she unfortunately passed away in 2005. We're highly unlikely to get it, given GRRM's stance on not wanting to pin down such details beyond what we've already seen in the Lands of Ice and Fire maps and the World of Ice and Fire book. So putting together a speculative website seems like a reasonable alternative, which is what I did a few weeks ago.

So far I've covered the following topics:

• Welcome to the Atlas of Ice and Fire
• Maps in Fantasy
• The Maps of A Song of Ice and Fire: A Game of Thrones
• The Maps of A Song of Ice and Fire: A Clash of Kings
• The Maps of A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords
• The Maps of A Song of Ice and Fire: A Feast for Crows 
• The Maps of A Song of Ice and Fire: A Dance with Dragons 
• The Maps of A Song of Ice and Fire: RPGs and Box Sets 
• The Maps of A Song of Ice and Fire: The Lands of Ice and Fire 
• The Maps of A Song of Ice and Fire: The World of Ice and Fire 
• The Maps of Game of Thrones: Westeros on TV 
• The Maps of A Song of Ice and Fire: Fan Maps 
• So How Big is the World Anyway?
• Karen Wynn Fonstad and the Art of Fantasy Cartography 
• The Size and Extent of Westeros 
• The Size and Extent of Essos, Sothoryos and Ulthos 
• A Political Map of the Known World 
• Terra Incognita: Beyond the Known World 
• The Population of the Seven Kingdoms
• It's Smaller on TV: Distances on Game of Thrones
• The Population of the Free Cities
• The Internal Borders of Westeros
• Details of the Maps: Roads, Mountains and Forests
• Valyria Before the Doom
• Unreliable Timelines and Confused Dates
• Wonders Made By Man
• The Seven Natural Wonders of the Known World

Future topics include a historical series of maps and (once I've found a good way of doing it) maps of the cities and castles we haven't seen yet, such as Winterfell, Harrenhal, Volantis, Meereen etc.

Thank you very much for this, I'll be looking at these for a long time.

[Werthead]

A Distance Map of Westeros.

I wanted to do a full isochronic map, but broke out in hives when I realised what that would entail (trying to work out walking speed on the Kingsroad versus horseriding speed on the Ocean Road versus infantry movement across country). Still a possibility for the future, but that'd be a hell of a lot of work.

[Lost Melnibonean]

On 9/29/2020 at 3:17 PM, Werthead said:

A Distance Map of Westeros.

I wanted to do a full isochronic map, but broke out in hives when I realised what that would entail (trying to work out walking speed on the Kingsroad versus horseriding speed on the Ocean Road versus infantry movement across country). Still a possibility for the future, but that'd be a hell of a lot of work.

We all have our calling in life.

[SeanF]

On 4/7/2020 at 10:11 PM, Werthead said:

Looking at the figures and comparing them to real medieval figures, I think we might have to consider that 1% mobilisation rate rule-of-thumb (although not unreasonable as a premise) to be too high. I think if we switched to 0.5%, that effectively doubles the population of each region which I think works much better.

Otherwise Westeros would be so sparsely populated as a whole it would be untenable. The Reach is twice the size of France with only a bit more than half the population (if we take 1300 as a base date, it's far worse if we choose 1400 or 1500).

I was doing this exercise for Wheel of Time where the continent is much bigger and the figures are also fairly low, but at least there the dwindling population levels are a key part of the plot.

Your Atlas is fascinating.  I agree now  that 40 million would have to be too low. The Seven Kingdoms are about 2.8 m square miles, which would give about 15 per square mile, half the level of England at the time of Domesday Book, and a quarter by 1300.  The North and Dorne would be very sparsely populated, but some regions, like the Reach, Vale of Arryn, Riverlands, are very fertile, and should support Medieval English or French levels of population.  Islands on major trade routes should be well-populated, too.

The Reach is twice the size of medieval France, so 25 m people there would be quite feasible. Perhaps then 4m in the North, 12m  in the Riverlands, 4m in Dorne, 10m in each of the Vale and the West, 5m in the Stormlands, 1m in the Iron Islands, 5m in Kings Landing and the Crownlands, Driftmark, Dragonstone and Claw Island?

Regarding mobilisation, logistics is probably the issue.  However many troops a region can field, having more than 40,000 in any one place (plus camp followers) will simply overburden the ability to feed and supply them.