Size and travel times of Westeros

[Aldarion]

OK, so I remembered this map that I found a while ago:

http://orbis.stanford.edu/

So could travel times be used to determine the size of Westeros?

From what I had found out:

• KinG Robert's entourage takes a moth from King's Landing to Winterfell. But this also includes Cersei's carriage. Depending on what that carriage was drawn by - oxcart could make 12 km/day, and horse-drawn carriage between 40 and 60 km per day - this could mean anywhere between 360 and 1 800 km distance (by road) from King's Landing to Winterfell. So a maximum of 1 120 miles from KL to WF. As it so happens, this would give distance from the Wall to southern coast at cca 2 250 miles (see map) as high-end estimate, and 450 miles as low-end estimate.
• Yoren states that it is "thousand miles" from King's Landing to the Wall. This would give height of Seven Kingdoms as cca 1 500 miles.
• By using 300 mile length of the Wall, Westeros would be 2 700 miles from the Wall to southern coast.

Some more discussion: https://atlasoficeandfireblog.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/the-size-and-extent-of-westeros/

[Free Northman Reborn]

The size is given. The Wall is 300 miles long. The straight line distance from Deepwood Motte to Winterfell is also confirmed as 300 miles.

Using those two references you can measure the entire Westeros quite accurately.

[Aldarion]

4 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The size is given. The Wall is 300 miles long. The straight line distance from Deepwood Motte to Winterfell is also confirmed as 300 miles.

Using those two references you can measure the entire Westeros quite accurately.

I am trying to find out not just size of Westeros, but whether travel times fit as well. But yes, both Wall and Deepwood Motte give total height of Seven Kingdoms as 3 000 miles.

[Free Northman Reborn]

8 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

I am trying to find out not just size of Westeros, but whether travel times fit as well. But yes, both Wall and Deepwood Motte give total height of Seven Kingdoms as 3 000 miles.

Travel times likely won’t fit. Martin once said he preferred to be vague about such matters, lest some guy (like you or I) take a ruler to the map and complain that Salladhor Saan or Catelyn sailed from point X to point Y too quickly. He cares more about the story than the internal consistency of logistical matters.

[Nittanian]

Right, GRRM tries to be vague (unfortunately for us).

1999

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Mormont's dialogue -- and the dialogue and thoughts of other characters, for that matter -- needs to be understood =as= dialogue. When we talk, we tend to be imprecise about such things, saying something happened "in the sixties" or "at the turn of the century," or that World War II was "fifty years ago." It's no different in the Seven Kingdoms.

And that goes for distances as well as dates. A phrase like "a thousand leagues" is not meant to be a precise measure of distance, only the equivilent of "a million miles away," ie, "a very long way."

2000

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How much time passed between Lord Tywin's "retreat" from the Red Fork and the "Battle of the Blackwater"? At what point between these events did Catelyn's last chapter occur?

Sigh. Obviously you are not a fan of my policy of deliberate vagueness about things like times and distances. I do hate to be pinned down...

2002

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The reason I am never specific about dates and distances is precisely so that people won't sit down and do this sort of thing.

My suggestion would be to put away the ruler and the stopwatch, and just enjoy the story.

2002

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And of course there are the people who want exact details. "They were long on the road" was the example he gave. He said he keeps things like distance and time deliberately vague. But someone would write inevitably write in and ask "How long were they on the road?". He just does not have rules for measuring the speed of a latent swallow, according to GRRM.

2003

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Regarding the size and geography of Westeros: it is about the size of South America. It is Not in the southern hemisphere. Stop asking George about distances and travel time. Measuring the realm by the reference of how long the Wall is NOT valid.

2008

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I have deliberately tried to be vague about such things, so I don't have obsessive fans with rulers measuring distances on the map and telling me Ned couldn't get from X to Y in the time I say he did.

However, if you really must know, you can figure out the distances for yourself. The Wall is a hundred leagues long. A league is three miles. Go from there.

But if you turn up any mistakes in travel times by using that measure, let it be your secret.

 

[Lluewhyn]

How much time passed between Lord Tywin's "retreat" from the Red Fork and the "Battle of the Blackwater"? At what point between these events did Catelyn's last chapter occur?

This is actually one of the things that bothers me in the story, although it's more than just the nitty-gritty details like distance and time. Tywin Lannister's army has been sitting out in the field for months, and while initially successful, has suffered significant losses including one of their generals and his army, AND the loss of the army back home meant to reinforce them. They march to return to their homeland, and suffer another devastating series of losses after a week of battle trying to cross a river. Then they find out that right after they left their one stronghold in the region, it was recaptured by enemy forces. So, you have an army who's spent months in enemy territory, has suffered catastrophic loss after loss, has no remaining base of operations or known ability to return home.......and then they force march several hundred miles in the opposite direction to make it to the Battle of the Blackwater (after a detour in Bitterbridge).

 

[Corvo the Crow]

3 minutes ago, Lluewhyn said:

How much time passed between Lord Tywin's "retreat" from the Red Fork and the "Battle of the Blackwater"? At what point between these events did Catelyn's last chapter occur?

This is actually one of the things that bothers me in the story, although it's more than just the nitty-gritty details like distance and time. Tywin Lannister's army has been sitting out in the field for months, and while initially successful, has suffered significant losses including one of their generals and his army, AND the loss of the army back home meant to reinforce them. They march to return to their homeland, and suffer another devastating series of losses after a week of battle trying to cross a river. Then they find out that right after they left their one stronghold in the region, it was recaptured by enemy forces. So, you have an army who's spent months in enemy territory, has suffered catastrophic loss after loss, has no remaining base of operations or known ability to return home.......and then they force march several hundred miles in the opposite direction to make it to the Battle of the Blackwater (after a detour in Bitterbridge).

 

That army, which started with 20000 strength, fought countless smaller battles and one major one(fighting Edmure’s dispersed forces and Green Fork, won all) left their wounded back, then fought numerous smaller battles again(To cross the Red Fork, lost all) and marched again for one last battle(Blackwater) yet somehow still has 20000 men.

[Lluewhyn]

4 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

That army, which started with 20000 strength, fought countless smaller battles and one major one(fighting Edmure’s dispersed forces and Green Fork, won all) left their wounded back, then fought numerous smaller battles again(To cross the Red Fork, lost all) and marched again for one last battle(Blackwater) yet somehow still has 20000 men.

Well, I thought of that topic when it comes to Amory Lorch attacking the Night's Watch recruits. Yeah, he pillaged and murdered, but lost a number of men doing it. That goes for every other raid that he or Gregor does in the Riverlands with people who fight back (presumably better than a bunch of unskilled peasants defending an easily climbed 10' or so high wall). At some point, attrition should kick in and there are no reinforcements, so this army is getting smaller and smaller.

[Corvo the Crow]

50 minutes ago, Lluewhyn said:

Well, I thought of that topic when it comes to Amory Lorch attacking the Night's Watch recruits. Yeah, he pillaged and murdered, but lost a number of men doing it. That goes for every other raid that he or Gregor does in the Riverlands with people who fight back (presumably better than a bunch of unskilled peasants defending an easily climbed 10' or so high wall). At some point, attrition should kick in and there are no reinforcements, so this army is getting smaller and smaller.

Oh one such other thing; Army camp beside the Twins when Arya comes just has “thousands of men and hundreds of horse”. Robb himself brought 3500 men on horse and we know knights and other heavy horsemen has 2 horses per man and Robb intended to have 12000 men attach the MC. What Arya saw comes nowhere near these numbers.

[argonak]

5 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The size is given. The Wall is 300 miles long. The straight line distance from Deepwood Motte to Winterfell is also confirmed as 300 miles.

Using those two references you can measure the entire Westeros quite accurately.

Well, its only as accurate as the maps are.   Has GRRM said they're accurate or are they just on the level of a maester's drawings made via medieval technology.  I kinda doubt Westeros has been properly surveyed.

[Lost Melnibonean]

This is helpful. 

[Ran]

1 hour ago, argonak said:

Well, its only as accurate as the maps are.   Has GRRM said they're accurate or are they just on the level of a maester's drawings made via medieval technology.  I kinda doubt Westeros has been properly surveyed.

GRRM uses the map he drew, on which all other maps are based, for his writing. He has admitted (eventually!) that the Wall on his map serves as a scale for 300 miles. There are a number of distances quoted in the books which are precise enough that you can see George took a ruler and measured the distance between the places.

Also, yes, Orbis is remarkably cool. Although I think one thing to note is that medieval transport technology was in some respects better than Roman -- the horse collar was a great improvement on the harnesses the Romans used for horses, greatly increasing the loads horses could pull. I think ox speeds were probably not much different, though. Oxen are slow.

[Werthead]

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GRRM uses the map he drew, on which all other maps are based, for his writing. He has admitted (eventually!) that the Wall on his map serves as a scale for 300 miles. There are a number of distances quoted in the books which are precise enough that you can see George took a ruler and measured the distance between the places.

 

I believe our main data points are:

1. The Wall is almost exactly 100 leagues or 300 miles long (from which I took to mean it might be 298 or 302 miles, but not much greater in variance) (AGoT).
2. The south coast of Westeros is 400 leagues or 1,200 miles in width (AFFC).
3. Tumbleton is 60 leagues or 180 miles from King's Landing (WoIaF).
4. It is also 100 leagues/300 miles from Deepwood Motte to Winterfell (ADWD).
5. It is 163 miles from Yunkai to Meereen (ASoS).
6. It is 550 leagues (1,650 miles) from Volantis to Meereen via the Demon Road (ADWD).

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KinG Robert's entourage takes a month from King's Landing to Winterfell

 

I believe this time is only given in the TV show. In the books no time is given for the time they spend on the road, and I think some people have estimated it at more like three months (which makes it seem ridiculous that Robert wouldn't have either left the damn wheelhouse behind or burned it down, but there we go), so presumably a six-month round trip.

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Travel times likely won’t fit. 

 

I've run into massive problems on my Wheel of Time atlas because the fan-made timeline I've been using was derived from travel times and not distances, resulting in completely impossible journeys (people travelling 800 miles in about 10 days on horseback), so measuring things by distances seems to be a much better idea.

[Universal Sword Donor]

On 8/29/2019 at 8:31 AM, Lluewhyn said:

How much time passed between Lord Tywin's "retreat" from the Red Fork and the "Battle of the Blackwater"? At what point between these events did Catelyn's last chapter occur?

This is actually one of the things that bothers me in the story, although it's more than just the nitty-gritty details like distance and time. Tywin Lannister's army has been sitting out in the field for months, and while initially successful, has suffered significant losses including one of their generals and his army, AND the loss of the army back home meant to reinforce them. They march to return to their homeland, and suffer another devastating series of losses after a week of battle trying to cross a river. Then they find out that right after they left their one stronghold in the region, it was recaptured by enemy forces. So, you have an army who's spent months in enemy territory, has suffered catastrophic loss after loss, has no remaining base of operations or known ability to return home.......and then they force march several hundred miles in the opposite direction to make it to the Battle of the Blackwater (after a detour in Bitterbridge).

 

They float on barges from Bitterbridge down to half a days march from KL