How much does the North spends on importing food

[Righteous Indecision]

It's almost impossible to import food into The North on a meaningful scale.

The north is roughly analogous to Russia. It's shaped a bit like the Scottish highlands, but it's much, much, bigger. If you take a map of the seven kingdoms, and use the wall as your scale (it's 100 leagues -> 300 miles -> 482km) you can start measuring the rest of the country.

Long story short, the north seems to be around two million square kilometres - 50% the size of European Russia.

Two million square kilometres is over three Ukraines, or four Spains. It's 1.66 times all of Scandinavia (including Finland and Iceland). The distance from the Wall in the farthest north, to Oldcastle on the south coast (of North) is over 1700km. That's around the distance from Copenhagen, to the top of Norway in the Arctic Circle - so it's about as tall as Scandinavia, but better filled-out landwise.

But it won't be filled out in terms of people. Most medieval folk didn't live in cities. They lived where they could grow or hunt food - all spread out. Kingsroad aside, Medieval roads were often swampy or axle-breakingly uneven, and moving goods along them could be hard because wagons don't go up hills very easily, or down them very safely. 

Importing food is easiest if you have modern technology, or a lot of sea/river access compared to your landmass (like Britain). The North is just too big.

[Zeed]

On 05/06/2021 at 17:39, The Young Maester said:

Reread the sentence

I really don't see any reason to assume that the cities of Westeros don't have market squares in addition to the cities. It's not like we've received detailed descriptions of any of them other than King's Landing... and many of the ones that are currently described do.
seems like a weird take to me

[The Young Maester]

2 hours ago, Zeed said:

I really don't see any reason to assume that the cities of Westeros don't have market squares in addition to the cities. It's not like we've received detailed descriptions of any of them other than King's Landing... and many of the ones that are currently described do.
seems like a weird take to me

Youre still not getting the point I made.

On 6/4/2021 at 10:59 PM, The Young Maester said:

This is why town centres and markets exist in every corner, and it’s also why every village will have some town or market town nearby.

 

[Universal Sword Donor]

7 hours ago, Zeed said:

I really don't see any reason to assume that the cities of Westeros don't have market squares in addition to the cities. It's not like we've received detailed descriptions of any of them other than King's Landing... and many of the ones that are currently described do.
seems like a weird take to me

We get a pretty decent description of OT and WH.

[Leonardo]

On 6/4/2021 at 8:07 AM, SeanF said:

People drinking wine and eating meat seasoned with spices,  above the salt at Winterfell, and other Northern centres, won't be relying upon local produce.  The North will import any food that can be preserved because it makes sense for them to do so.  In times of famine, the old go out to die in "hunting trips" but they want to avoid that if possible.

 

Importing any kind of food that could be preserved, as well as alcohol and spices, was a very big thing in medieval Europe.  Gascon wine exports to England were huge, and Spanish and Rhenish exports were substantial.

 

Umm wine and spices aren't really 'food'. They're luxury goods. We're talking about mass imports of grain, barley, oats. Foods for the commons.