Atlas of Ice and Fire

[The Grey Wolf]

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

Yes. The "known world" appears to be around 20-25% of the total surface area of the planet. GRRM has also said the planet is larger than Earth (I've followed a geological blog that crunched some numbers and came up with about 8% larger).

There is a very good indication there are more continents out there: storm systems form over open water and gather strength the further they travel before hitting land, where they tend to dissipate. If there were no other continents out there, Westeros and Essos would be getting slammed by some pretty massive storms on a regular basis, which they're not.

As for knowledge, this is where George hits some problems. As early as the Roman era, people in Western Europe knew that China was out there and that Asia had a far east coast, and China is considerably further east from Spain than Asshai is from Westeros. We should have complete maps of Essos really, or at least a better indication of what's out there. The only way we can't is if Essos is uninhabitable east of Asshai for whatever reason.

In WoIaF it does say that both Qarth and the Summer Islanders - and we know the Valyrians did - have explored the coast of Sothoryos some distance south, further than what is shown on the existing maps.

Historical Map 25: The Baratheon Reign

Which brings the historical maps to a close.

 

 

You made a small error Werthead. Balon Greyjoy in ASOIAF was crowned the IX of his name not the I. Otherwise, a job well-done.

[SFDanny]

10 hours ago, Werthead said:

Historical Map 25: The Baratheon Reign

Which brings the historical maps to a close.

 

 

Werthead, 

a point on Robert's reign and his coronation. You have him having his coronation in 284, when it is almost certainly in 283. The only ways to get a 284 date are to either go with a end of year sack of King's Landing in 283 and coronation in first week of 284, or a second coronation. The first I don't think likely at all, and the second I find little to support it in the text. I base that on three quotes.

Quote

At Robert’s coronation, I was made to kneel at the royal feet beside Grand Maester Pycelle and Varys the eunuch, so that he might forgive us our crimes before he took us into his service.” (ACoK 600 US hardback) 

 

Quote

“Ser Barristan once told me that the rot in King Aerys’s reign began with Varys. The eunuch should never have been pardoned. No more than the Kingslayer. At the least, Robert should have stripped the white cloak from Jaime and sent him to the Wall as Lord Stark urged. He listened to Jon Arryn instead. I was still at Storm’s End, under siege and unconsulted.” (ASoS 411 US hardback)

emphasis added

and,

Quote

Ned did not feign surprise; Robert's hatred of the Targaryens was a madness in him. He remembered the angry words they had exchanged when Tywin Lannister had presented Robert with the corpses of Rhaegar's wife and children as a token of fealty. Ned had named that murder; Robert called it war. When he had protested that the young prince and princess were no more than babes, his new-made king had replied, "I see no babes. Only dragonspawn." Not even Jon Arryn had been able to clam that storm. Eddard Stark had ridden out that very day in a cold rage, to fight the last battles of the war alone in the south. It had taken another death to reconcile them; Lyanna's death, and the grief they had shared over her passing. (AGoT 93-94 US hardback)

bold emphasis added

The first quote tells us that Jaime, Pycelle, and Varys are pardoned at the coronation. The second tells us that the pardoning takes place before Ned relieves the siege at Storm's End, and the last tells us that Robert is king before Ned leaves King's Landing. It seems very clear to me that the timeframe in which the coronation takes place is limited to after Robert arrives in King's Landing from the Trident to before Ned leaves King's Landing in his "cold rage" and goes on to lift the siege at Storm's End, fight at the Tower of Joy, finds Lyanna, goes on Starfall, etc.

It is possible that Robert has a second coronation in 284, much like Aegon does when he wins the High Septon to anoint him, but besides showing there is a coronation before this second possible one, it also would cast in doubt the same reasons would be a cause a second coronation. Unlike in Aegon's time, the High Septon resides in King's Landing and he has little reason to object to Robert's claim. There are five High Lords there and endorsing Robert's coronation and it is unlikely the High Septon would refuse to participate in the first coronation. This High Septon has no where near the power that the one in Aegon's day had. Really what we are doing here is creating a second coronation based on Yandel's "first act" remark. I don't think that's a strong enough branch to walk out on, but it is possible.

 

Let me end with a nod at all the amazing work. Fantastic stuff!

[Werthead]

Wasn't the wedding and the coronation held in close proximity to one another, and we know the wedding was definitely in 284? I might be misremembering that.

In addition, my take on GRRM's definition (the real historical matter was variable) is that a coronation is the validation of a king's reign, not the beginning of it. For example, when the British monarch dies there will be a period of mourning before the heir is crowned, but they are still the new monarch from the second the previous one dies. So Robert is the "newly made king" from when Aerys dies in 283, but the coronation is the big knees-up held when he is confirmed and crowned. That certainly wasn't for a few months after the Sack anyway (the city needed to be cleaned up, pardons issued, Eddard need to go to the ToJ and Starfall and back again and so forth).

[SFDanny]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

Wasn't the wedding and the coronation held in close proximity to one another, and we know the wedding was definitely in 284? I might be misremembering that.

If there was a second coronation then it is possible that second one was held close to the wedding. We just have nothing that really says there was a second coronation. As to the first, and possibly only coronation, there is no doubt when it takes place. It has to take place after Robert arrives in King's Landing from the Battle of the Trident, and up to when Ned leaves King's Landing to relieve the siege at Storm's End. How long a period this is exactly is unknown, but it looks to be days at most, not more than a week. 

I believe the coronation ceremony and Tywin's presenting of the bodies of Elia and her children are part of the same occasion. Once Robert is crowned, the next logical step is to accept oaths of fealty from those present. That's the whole purpose of doing a coronation at this early stage. It is to tell Westeros, in no uncertain terms, there is a new king on the Iron Throne. This looks to be when Tywin lays the bodies, swathed in Lannister crimson, before Robert's feet as a token of Lannister allegiance. Jaime names the ceremony at which he is pardoned as the coronation, and Stannis places the pardons before Ned arrives to lift the siege of Storm's End. Nor is the use by Ned of the phrase "new made king" an accident. The way in which one officially makes a king is by crowning them.

All of which does not say anything about when the wedding takes place. The key here is that I don't think Robert would accept Jon Arryn's advice to marry Cersei before Ned arrives back in King's Landing with the news of Lyanna's death. In his mind, Lyanna is still his betrothed, and that rules out talks of another marriage. I don't see how Ned get's back to King's Landing before the beginning of 284, and likely it is at least a month or two into the new year when he does. So, I have no disagreement at all about a 284 date for the wedding. But it does raise some interesting questions. Does Ned stay in King's Landing to attend the wedding? And does the infant Jon stay with him during this period? I think the first is likely and the second much less so. It certainly would make a difference if Ned can make a trip to Winterfell and back in time for the wedding, but here we are speculating without a net.

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

In addition, my take on GRRM's definition (the real historical matter was variable) is that a coronation is the validation of a king's reign, not the beginning of it. For example, when the British monarch dies there will be a period of mourning before the heir is crowned, but they are still the new monarch from the second the previous one dies. So Robert is the "newly made king" from when Aerys dies in 283, but the coronation is the big knees-up held when he is confirmed and crowned. That certainly wasn't for a few months after the Sack anyway (the city needed to be cleaned up, pardons issued, Eddard need to go to the ToJ and Starfall and back again and so forth).

I don't think we can say Robert is king from the moment Aerys dies. Aerys had an heir and his name was Viserys, not Robert. If there is some automatic succession it goes to Viserys. Robert and the leaders of the rebellion have already announced Robert's claim to the throne around the time of the Trident, but that is different from seizing the crown and sitting the throne and thereby telling everyone that the Targaryen dynasty is finished. Clearly, that is the political statement that the rebels have to make, and making it is not to be delayed by things like bodies still littering the streets of King's Landing.

[Arakan]

Hi Werthead, 
first of all your blog is great stuff. 
I am a bit of a pre-modern demographics nerd and so your entries about the population of Westeros and the Free Cities (aka Western Essos) catched my attention. As FNR already made some good points regarding Westeros I would like to focus on Western Essos. 

In general, I think given the population you attribute to the Free Cities proper you underestimate the overall population of Western Essos quite significantly. 

I would like to focus on Volantis and Braavos in this post. 

Volantis "empire" 
1. Volantis proper: 1.0-1.2 million 
2. Other urban areas: 1.2-1.5 million
3. total: 6.2 million 

With figure 1 I can agree, also with your estimation of "other urban areas" though only when this includes not only the population of the three mentioned towns but the overall urban population excluding Volantis proper. I think it is perfectly reasonable to assume that there are more urban settlements.  So let's go with 2.4 million urban population. But I have a problem with the total figure because this would imply a rural population of only 3.8 million people or an urbanization rate of almost 40% and I think you know that this is way off the mark! 

To give a little bit of context: Italy at the height of the Roman Empire is estimated to have had an UR of 20-25% which itself is huge (standard pre-modern: 5-10%) and was only sustainable due to massive food imports from all over the empire (esp. Sicily and Egypt). When we take this in context even 25% urban population for the Volantis "empire" seems  too much because this would imply that a large percentage of their grain has to be imported. I ask: from where outside the Volantis territory? 

This leads me to the conclusion that the overall urbanization rate of the Volantis empire could be in the best case somewhere between 15-20% (and this is assuming a high vertility of the land along the Rhoyne at least on the level of the Nile). That leaves me with following figures :
1. Volantis proper: 1.2 million (your figure)
2. OUA: 1.2 million (your figure)
3. Rural population: 9.5-10 million 
4. Total population: 11-12 million (which gives us an UR of roughly 20%). 

Coming to Braavos...
Here you give the following figures:
1. Braavos proper: 0.8 million 
2. Surroundings: 2-3 million 

If the surrounding population would imply this is all rural I would agree with 3 million (but as minimum) but this begs the question: are there no other urban centres in the Braavosi "empire"? In my opinion this would be a wrong assumption. Logic and historical real life examples would suggest that there is quite a lot of urban population outside of Braavos proper, especially given the size of the controlled area. Quite likely less than in the case of Volantis but still somewhere in the region of roughly 50% of Braavos proper (Volantis had a factor of 100%). Furthermore I expect less fertility around Braavos and North-Western Essos than along the Rhoyne which implies more rural workforce needed to cultivate relatively more land. 

I would thus suggest the following figures:
1. Braavos proper: 0.8 million (your figure)
2. OUA: 0.4 million (my estimation)
3. Rural population: ca. 6 million 
4. Total population: 7-8 million (which gives us an UR of 15-17%). 

This gives us for both, Volantis and Braavos, a population of 18-20 million compared to your estimation of 9-10 million :). 

20 million seems a lot? Actually it's not ;). Compare this to the Roman Empire around 200 AD which had one "million city" with Rome, one city in the 300-500k ballpark with Alexandria and two cities (Carthage and Antioch) in the 150-200k ballpark. 
The best of the rest of Roman cities where all around 50k. And that Empire had 60 (!!) million people. 

I have not the time right now for the other Free Cities but all in all it is absolutely safe to assume that the combined population of the Free Cities is at least on total Westeros level, likely a bit higher, i.e. in the 40-50 million ballpark. 

If that seems too much well then GRRM should have made his Free Cities smaller ;). 

[Werthead]

Found a great map making programme that can turn a flat map into a planet.

It works okay for southern Westeros and Essos, but it does make the North and Beyond the Wall look awful.

This confirms what I've always thought, that to make the North and Beyond the Wall keep their scale on a spherical image (which they have to do, as the scale of the Wall and the south coast of Dorne matches despite 3,000 miles being between them), then on a flat map the North and BtW would have to bulge out further east and west than they do on any map we've seen. There's probably some kind of algorithm for that but I'll see if I can make that work.

It works a hell of a lot better for The Malazan Book of the Fallen because Steven Erikson was sensible enough to stay away from the poles.

[Werthead]

Globe of Ice and Fire: Circling the Square

In which I fail to create a proper global map but illustrate some of the problems associated with the project.

[SeanF]

On ‎12‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 7:04 PM, Arakan said:

Hi Werthead, 
first of all your blog is great stuff. 
I am a bit of a pre-modern demographics nerd and so your entries about the population of Westeros and the Free Cities (aka Western Essos) catched my attention. As FNR already made some good points regarding Westeros I would like to focus on Western Essos. 

In general, I think given the population you attribute to the Free Cities proper you underestimate the overall population of Western Essos quite significantly. 

I would like to focus on Volantis and Braavos in this post. 

Volantis "empire" 
1. Volantis proper: 1.0-1.2 million 
2. Other urban areas: 1.2-1.5 million
3. total: 6.2 million 

With figure 1 I can agree, also with your estimation of "other urban areas" though only when this includes not only the population of the three mentioned towns but the overall urban population excluding Volantis proper. I think it is perfectly reasonable to assume that there are more urban settlements.  So let's go with 2.4 million urban population. But I have a problem with the total figure because this would imply a rural population of only 3.8 million people or an urbanization rate of almost 40% and I think you know that this is way off the mark! 

To give a little bit of context: Italy at the height of the Roman Empire is estimated to have had an UR of 20-25% which itself is huge (standard pre-modern: 5-10%) and was only sustainable due to massive food imports from all over the empire (esp. Sicily and Egypt). When we take this in context even 25% urban population for the Volantis "empire" seems  too much because this would imply that a large percentage of their grain has to be imported. I ask: from where outside the Volantis territory? 

This leads me to the conclusion that the overall urbanization rate of the Volantis empire could be in the best case somewhere between 15-20% (and this is assuming a high vertility of the land along the Rhoyne at least on the level of the Nile). That leaves me with following figures :
1. Volantis proper: 1.2 million (your figure)
2. OUA: 1.2 million (your figure)
3. Rural population: 9.5-10 million 
4. Total population: 11-12 million (which gives us an UR of roughly 20%). 

Coming to Braavos...
Here you give the following figures:
1. Braavos proper: 0.8 million 
2. Surroundings: 2-3 million 

If the surrounding population would imply this is all rural I would agree with 3 million (but as minimum) but this begs the question: are there no other urban centres in the Braavosi "empire"? In my opinion this would be a wrong assumption. Logic and historical real life examples would suggest that there is quite a lot of urban population outside of Braavos proper, especially given the size of the controlled area. Quite likely less than in the case of Volantis but still somewhere in the region of roughly 50% of Braavos proper (Volantis had a factor of 100%). Furthermore I expect less fertility around Braavos and North-Western Essos than along the Rhoyne which implies more rural workforce needed to cultivate relatively more land. 

I would thus suggest the following figures:
1. Braavos proper: 0.8 million (your figure)
2. OUA: 0.4 million (my estimation)
3. Rural population: ca. 6 million 
4. Total population: 7-8 million (which gives us an UR of 15-17%). 

This gives us for both, Volantis and Braavos, a population of 18-20 million compared to your estimation of 9-10 million :). 

20 million seems a lot? Actually it's not ;). Compare this to the Roman Empire around 200 AD which had one "million city" with Rome, one city in the 300-500k ballpark with Alexandria and two cities (Carthage and Antioch) in the 150-200k ballpark. 
The best of the rest of Roman cities where all around 50k. And that Empire had 60 (!!) million people. 

I have not the time right now for the other Free Cities but all in all it is absolutely safe to assume that the combined population of the Free Cities is at least on total Westeros level, likely a bit higher, i.e. in the 40-50 million ballpark. 

If that seems too much well then GRRM should have made his Free Cities smaller ;). 

The level or urbanisation in Western Essos may be higher than usual in pre-industrial societies, because of the degree of trade.

That said, I don't think a combined population of 40-50 m for the Free Cities is at all implausible. 

[Arakan]

31 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The level or urbanisation in Western Essos may be higher than usual in pre-industrial societies, because of the degree of trade.

That said, I don't think a combined population of 40-50 m for the Free Cities is at all implausible. 

I expanded on this in a thread in General, with many many statistics  . I will mark you.  In short: it's not a question of plausibility but of necessity given the size GRRM chose for the size of the Free Cities

[Werthead]

I may need to review the size of Braavos. The maps GRRM provided for Lands of Ice and Fire apparently noted that you can see each individual building in the city quite easily, unlike King's Landing where they were tiny dots. On that basis Braavos may actually be smaller than King's Landing.

Whilst fiddling around with the globe map I came up with latitudes for many locations and cities. This, pleasingly, puts Winterfell at the same latitude as York (more or less).

 

Quote

Fist of the First Men: 64.29°N

Reykjavik, Iceland: 64.08°N

The Wall: 61.97°N

Moscow, Russia: 55.45°N

Winterfell: 54.2°N

London, UK: 51.3°N

Braavos: 44.95°N

Madrid, Spain: 40.23°N

Riverrun: 39.75°N

Washington, DC: 38.54°N

Vaes Dothrak: 37.75°N

San Franciso, California: 37.47°N

King's Landing & Pentos: 34.5°N

Cairo, Egypt: 30.3°N

Meereen: 25.75°N

Oldtown: 25.66°N

Miami, Florida: 25.46°N

Astapor: 20.65°N

Mumbai, India: 18.58°N

Qarth: 16.32°N

Dakar, Senegal: 14.41°N

Valyria: 13.76°N

Abuja, Nigeria: 9.4°N

Tall Trees Town: 8.1°N

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: 3.8°N

Asshai: 1.75°N

Singapore: 1.17°N

 

[Werthead]

Geographic Map 1: The Known World

A Song of Lines and Latitude

Ha, just realised that Braavos is also at (give or take) the same latitude as Venice.

 

[Werthead]

Geographic Map 2: Westeros

[Free Northman Reborn]

On 2016/12/31 at 0:38 AM, Werthead said:

Geographic Map 2: Westeros

I really like this map. Particularly the one depicting the estimated population statistics for each region and the major cities. I agree with King's Landing at around 400k, with the wartime influx pushing it to 500k temporarily. I also think that Gulltown at 50k and White Harbor at 30k is probably a good ballpark estimate for their respective sizes, with Martin having once said that they number in the tens of thousands of citizens each, with Gulltown being slightly the larger of the two cities.

Just a few comments from my side:

The absolute numbers for any region remains difficult to pin down, and it is really the comparative numbers between respective regions that require some consideration.

In summary, you have the numbers for the 9 regions, from highest to lowest, as follows;

The Reach - 12 million

The West - 5.5 million

The North - 4 million

The Vale - 4 million

The Riverlands - 4 million

Dorne - 3 million

The Stormlands - 2.5 million

The Crownlands - 1.5 million

The Iron Isles - 1.5 million

With regard to the above, a number of problematic issues arise

1. Stormlands and Dorne

The first immediate issue is that Dorne and the Stormlands should surely be switched around, given Doran Martell's statement to Arriane that Dorne has the lowest population of the Seven Kingdoms. So a population of 2.5 million for Dorne and 3 million for the Stormlands seems more appropriate, rather than the other way around as depicted on your current map.

2. Iron Isles

Next, the Iron Isles should probably be much lower than 1.5 million. Martin has stated that their mobilization rate is far higher than that of the mainland kingdoms. Here are his exact words:

"The ironborn come from a culture with a very strong warrior tradition -- much more so than mainland Westeros. The rest of the Seven Kingdoms have a warrior caste (the knights) on top of a larger base of peasants, farmers, craftsmen, merchants, etc. The "Old Way" of the islands encouraged almost all men (and some women, like Asha) to take up raiding, at least if they were young and healthy."

So we are talking a mobilization rate much higher than the 1% assumed for the other kingdoms. Martin says "almost all men who are young and healthy take up raiding."

If we go with even just half of all males between the ages of 15 and 50, which is probably the lowest estimate that would make Martin's statement above broadly true (and still ignoring the reference to some women taking up raiding, which would push the mobilization rate up even more), then we are probably looking at as much as 25% of the entire male population of the islands being mobilized into their army. Presuming males make up half the population, that means about 12.5% of the total population of the Islands. If that army numbers say 25k raiders, then even if we halve the 12.5% to just 6.25%, we still only get to a total Ironborn population of 400k people.

500k is probably a generous estimate of the Ironborn population, which, presuming a 25k raiding strength, places their mobilization rate at 5% of the population, which is probably the lowest that would fit George's statement on their mobilization approach. One should also consider that 500k seems an awfully large population for their tiny group of Islands, when compared to other Island locations around Westeros, such as the Three Sisters, Skagos, Bear Island, Tarth, the Arbor etc.

3. The Riverlands vs the Westerlands

George has stated that the Riverlands are fertile and populous, and that their weakness is not lack of population, but rather divided leadership and weak natural borders. The Riverlands appear significantly larger in territorial size than the Westerlands, while at the same time being fertile and populous. I would suggest that it is highly likely that the Riverlands have a higher, or at the very least, similar sized population to the Westerlands.

As for the Westerlands 5.5 million estimate, there are two considerations here.

The first is the army size they have raised, which is a key basis for this population estimate. Tywin raised 35k soldiers initially, including sellswords, who are said to have been flocking to Casterly Rock for some time prior to his invasion of the Riverlands. Of that 35k, about 4k retreated from the defeat at the Camps to form the core of Stafford Lannister's second army (generally thought to be around 10k in size). The remaining 6k consisted of pot boys, street urchins and the "sweepings of Lannisport", as described by one character in Storm of Swords.

So it would seem that these were already stretching the Lanniser forces to the very dregs of their capability. And even then, would only have taken their total strength raised to around 41k. But even so, let's assume they had further forces in reserve to bring their total strength up to 45k. Or even 50k, to be generous. This brings us to the second consideration - which is mobilization rate. Given their great wealth and relatively small geographical area, it is logical that their mobilization rate will be higher than that of other mainland regions. After all, it is not population size that limited medieval nations to a 1% mobilization rate, but instead economic and logistical constraints. So in both of those areas the Lannisters would have a distinct advantage. Meaning that they can likely exceed the 1% limitation used as an average for other mainland regions.

To illustrate the implication of this, even if they are just able to raise 1.25% of their population to war, that means that even a 50k military strength would translate to only a 4 million total population. Which is what I think the population of the Westerlands should be estimated at. Note that if either the 50k army size should actually be 45k, or the 1.25% mobilization rate should actually be 1.5%, (both of which seem very possible given the information at hand), then the Westerlands population would be even lower than 4 million. So 4 million seems a generous assessment of the West's population, all things considered.

To conclude this point, I would place the Riverlands higher - at 5 million people, and the Westerlands lower, at 4 million people, given what we know about these two respective regions.

4. The North

And then we have the North, which has exactly the opposite factors at play in determining their army size, compared to the West. The North is both a much larger and more difficult region to mobilize troops in from a logistical point of view, and it is much poorer than the Westerlands. So, where the West almost certainly has a higher mobilization rate than the continental average of 1%, the North almost certainly has a lower mobilization rate than the average. Let's put them at 0.75%.

Even a total strength of only 35k soldiers, at a 0.75% mobilization rate would take their population to above 4.7 million. And if they are in fact able to match the Vale's armed strength as Martin has indeed stated, that means that they would do so at a distinct logistical disadvantage, given the Vale's smaller area and greater fertility, which again translates into this lower mobilzation rate in the North compared to the South, and therefore requires a higher population for the North than the Vale.

And if they can in fact raise 40k soldiers, as seems quite possible from recent hints in Dance, at a 0.75% mobilization rate that would take them to above 5.3 million people. So to conclude this point, I would place the North at no less than 4.5 million people (and possibly significantly more than that, depending on how low their mobilization rate actually is). Note that this would also tie into your latitude speculations, which actually places the North somewhat further South (with Winterfell roughly at York's real world latitude), than what many people have estimated in the past.

Conclusion

I have not touched on the Reach, as they have a lot of variables at play, although I would say that after the Westerlands they likely have the highest mobilization rate of the mainland kingdoms, given their relative wealth and fertility. So even if they are able to raise 100k  troops, at a higher mobilization rate than average that does not necessarily translate to 10 million people or more.  Given what I have raised above, I believe the following population distribution would be more appropriate for the demographic map:

The Reach - 10 million

The Riverlands - 5 million

The North - 4.5 million (at least, though possibly as high as 6 million)

The West - 4.5 million (at most, though possibly less than 4 million)

The Vale - 4 million

The Stormlands - 3 million

Dorne - 2.5 million

The Crownlands - 1.5 million

The Iron Isles - 500k

[Werthead]

I've always had a major problem with the "ironborn raiding culture" thing. They've had two bouts of raiding in the past twelve years (three if you count their raid on the Mander during Robert's Rebellion, which was a failure) and before that it was decades since the ironborn mounted any kind of regular raiding expeditions. We know that some individual hardcore ironborn go on raiding missions to the Narrow Sea and the Stepstones, but that isn't commonplace.

So for the rest of the time, I have no idea who or what the ironborn are raiding. Each other? That's not made clear.

I think that individual ironborn raise their kids with some combat training and attitude etc, but in terms of actual combat they mostly don't do anything. They're instead far more likely to fish or trade, and the so-called "fighting culture" of the ironborn makes up a relatively small part of the popluation instead.

[Free Northman Reborn]

20 hours ago, Werthead said:

I've always had a major problem with the "ironborn raiding culture" thing. They've had two bouts of raiding in the past twelve years (three if you count their raid on the Mander during Robert's Rebellion, which was a failure) and before that it was decades since the ironborn mounted any kind of regular raiding expeditions. We know that some individual hardcore ironborn go on raiding missions to the Narrow Sea and the Stepstones, but that isn't commonplace.

So for the rest of the time, I have no idea who or what the ironborn are raiding. Each other? That's not made clear.

I think that individual ironborn raise their kids with some combat training and attitude etc, but in terms of actual combat they mostly don't do anything. They're instead far more likely to fish or trade, and the so-called "fighting culture" of the ironborn makes up a relatively small part of the popluation instead.

Well, we can't very well ignore a direct statement to that effect from the author. The only full Ironborn mobilization we get to experience is the one in the current series, and it is with this mobilization in mind that Martin made his statement saying:

"The ironborn come from a culture with a very strong warrior tradition -- much more so than mainland Westeros. The rest of the Seven Kingdoms have a warrior caste (the knights) on top of a larger base of peasants, farmers, craftsmen, merchants, etc. The "Old Way" of the islands encouraged almost all men (and some women, like Asha) to take up raiding, at least if they were young and healthy."

So we have no choice but to accept it at face value. Besides, it just makes no sense for the tiny Iron Isles to have a population equal to the entire, fertile Crownlands, which includes a city of 400k people making up almost a third of its population. I think Martin's statement was an acknowledgment of the fact that the tiny Iron Isles cannot have a population even close to that of the other kingdoms, and that their martial culture is what allows them to raise armies of comparative size to the weakest of the mainland kingdoms.

Remember that this full scale mobilization only comes into effect when the entire Ironborn fleet is marshalled for war. So it would only be on rare occasions, relatively speaking. Such as the current War of the Five Kings.

 

 

[Werthead]

Geographic Map 3: The Lands Beyond the Wall

[Werthead]

Geographic Map 4: The Wall and Skagos

[Werthead]

Geographic Map 5: The North

[Free Northman Reborn]

12 hours ago, Werthead said:

Geographic Map 5: The North

Great job, Werthead. Really makes one get a feel for the immensity of this kingdom.

A few comments from my side.

House Locke is a primary bannerhouse to Winterfell, and not a vassal to House Manderly. Similar to House Flint of Widow's Watch, despite Manderly claiming the "allegiance" of both these Houses. They are perhaps lesser allies of his, rather than vassals.

Also, I don't think the Neck is fed by the Green Fork. Is it not drained by it, instead? The Green Fork seems to originate in the Neck and then join up with the other forks down stream.

I'll scan through the article again when I have more time to see if I can spot anything else.

EDIT

Oh yes. It seems exceedingly unlikely that House Bolton is more powerful than House Manderly in military terms.

Wyman Manderly already confirms that he still has more heavy horse than House Bolton, even AFTER the losses he has suffered. And if you look at the infantry recruitment potential in White Harbor and the populated White Knife areas, it seems obvious that he should have more infantry too.

 

[Werthead]

14 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Great job, Werthead. Really makes one get a feel for the immensity of this kingdom.

A few comments from my side.

House Locke is a primary bannerhouse to Winterfell, and not a vassal to House Manderly. Similar to House Flint of Widow's Watch, despite Manderly claiming the "allegiance" of both these Houses. They are perhaps lesser allies of his, rather than vassals.

Also, I don't think the Neck is fed by the Green Fork. Is it not drained by it, instead? The Green Fork seems to originate in the Neck and then join up with the other forks down stream.

I'll scan through the article again when I have more time to see if I can spot anything else.

EDIT

Oh yes. It seems exceedingly unlikely that House Bolton is more powerful than House Manderly in military terms.

Wyman Manderly already confirms that he still has more heavy horse than House Bolton, even AFTER the losses he has suffered. And if you look at the infantry recruitment potential in White Harbor and the populated White Knife areas, it seems obvious that he should have more infantry too.

The power level between the Boltons and Manderlys is an interesting one. The Manderlys appear to be richer and more populous, so it should be a no-brainer. However, the Manderlys are almost certainly richer and more populous than the Starks when taken on their own merits as well, so they're not the only factors in play. The Boltons do appear to have more influence, infamy and ruthlessness, which counts for a lot in terms of overall political influence, weight and power. Roose Bolton is also a far more formidable military strategist than Wyman Manderly (although, as with so much else, Wyman may have far more nous than it first appears).

Regards with Oldcastle, I was going with Manderly's statements in ADWD and it wouldn't be the first time that George had reorganised the vassal structure mid-series (such as previous Tyrell bannermen being changed into Hightower sub-vassals in AFFC). However, I am also wondering if he meant that Widow's Watch and Oldcastle were simply "with him" in turns of opposing the Bolton influence.