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Some pointless facts and statistics about chapter locations throughout the series


WhatAnArtist!

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Having just finished my re-read of the series, and having nothing better to do, I decided to make a list of where each chapter takes place, out of mild curiosity to see how evenly - or not so evenly - the chapters are spread out across the known world that Martin created. Here's the totals for each of the five books, and then I'll provide a grand total at the end.

Note: I considered making King's Landing its own separate category because so many chapters take place there, but I wanted to be consistent by keeping things to the larger region. 

 

A Game of Thrones:

  1. The Crownlands          | 22 chapters
  2. The North                    | 19 chapters
  3. The Riverlands            | 9 chapters
  4. The Dothraki Sea        | 8 chapters
  5. The Wall                       | 6 chapters
  6. The Vale                       | 5 chapters
  7. Beyond the Wall          | 2 chapters
  8. The Free Cities            | 2 chapters

A Clash of Kings:

  1. The Crownlands           | 28 chapters
  2. The Riverlands             | 12 chapters
  3. The North                     | 11 chapters
  4. Beyond the Wall           | 7 chapters
  5. The Red Waste             | 5 chapters
  6. The Stormlands            | 3 chapters
  7. The Iron Islands            | 2 chapters
  8. The Wall                        | 1 chapter
  9. The Reach                    | 1 chapter

A Storm of Swords

  1. The Riverlands            | 26 chapters
  2. The Crownlands          | 25 chapters
  3. Beyond the Wall          | 9 chapters
  4. The Wall                       | 9 chapters
  5. Slaver's Bay                 | 5 chapters
  6. The North                    | 4 chapters
  7. The Vale                      | 3 chapters
  8. The Summer Sea        | 1 chapter

A Feast for Crows

  1. The Crownlands           | 18 chapters
  2. The Riverlands             | 8 chapters
  3. The Iron Islands           | 4 chapters
  4. Dorne                            | 4 chapters
  5. The Free Cities            | 4 chapters
  6. The Vale                       | 3 chapters
  7. The Reach                    | 3 chapters
  8. The Wall                       | 1 chapter
  9. The North                    | 1 chapter

A Dance with Dragons

  1. Slaver's Bay                | 21 chapters
  2. The North                   | 13 chapters
  3. The Wall                      | 11 chapters
  4. The Free Cities           | 11 chapters
  5. Beyond the Wall         | 6 chapters
  6. The Crownlands         | 3 chapters
  7. The Summer Sea        | 2 chapters
  8. The Vale                      | 1 chapter
  9. The Riverlands           | 1 chapter
  10. The Stormlands         | 1 chapter
  11. Dorne                         | 1 chapter
  12. The Dothraki Sea      | 1 chapter

Grand totals:

  1. The Crownlands       | 86 chapters
  2. The Riverlands         | 56 chapters
  3. The North                 | 46 chapters
  4. The Wall                    | 28 chapters
  5. Slaver's Bay              | 26 chapters
  6. Beyond the Wall       | 24 chapters
  7. The Free Cities         | 17 chapters
  8. The Vale                    | 12 chapters
  9. The Dothraki Sea     | 9 chapters
  10. The Iron Islands       | 6 chapters
  11. Dorne                        | 5 chapters
  12. The Red Waste         | 5 chapters
  13. The Stormlands        | 4 chapters
  14. The Reach                | 4 chapters
  15. The Summer Sea     | 3 chapters

 

As you can see, the Crownlands and the Riverlands dominate this series. There are 331 chapters in this series, and 142 of them take place in these two regions, which is 42%. Despite the Crownlands and the Riverlands being among the most geographically small regions of Westeros, almost half of the series' chapters take place here, and for the Crownlands its overwhelmingly focused on one city.

Despite being the homelands of the major houses of the Tyrells and Baratheons respectively, the Reach and the Stormlands have only four chapters each taking place in these regions, not even as many combined as take place in the Dothraki Sea.

The Iron Islands and Dorne have fewer chapters than I initially expected. There's only 6 Iron Islands chapters - two in Clash and four in Feast - and 5 Dorne chapters - 4 in Feast and one in Dance. Even in the book that theoretically was supposed to flesh out these regions - A Feast for Crows - they barely show up compared to other places.

A Dance with Dragons is the only book in the series where there are more chapters that take place in Essos than any other single region, because of the influx of PoVs to that continent. Before Dance there was only ever one PoV in Essos at a time - Dany in the first three books, and Arya in Feast*, but Dance sees an unusual high of 7 different PoVs there throughout the book - Arya, Tyrion, Connington, Quentyn, Daenerys, Barristan, and Victarian. 

A Dance with Dragons is the book that covers the most separate regions - 12 - while A Game of Thrones and A Storm of Swords - are tied last with only 8 regions. I blame the overwhelming focus on the multiple Riverlands travelogue story-arcs in Storm. That said, quite a few of the regions shown in Dance are only one-off chapters, e.g. the Riverlands, the Stormlands, Dorne, the Dothraki Sea. 

* Okay Sam had one chapter in Braavos, but still.

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19 minutes ago, WhatAnArtist! said:

Having just finished my re-read of the series, and having nothing better to do, I decided to make a list of where each chapter takes place, out of mild curiosity to see how evenly - or not so evenly - the chapters are spread out across the known world that Martin created. Here's the totals for each of the five books, and then I'll provide a grand total at the end.

Note: I considered making King's Landing its own separate category because so many chapters take place there, but I wanted to be consistent by keeping things to the larger region. 

 

A Game of Thrones:

  1. The Crownlands          | 22 chapters
  2. The North                    | 19 chapters
  3. The Riverlands            | 9 chapters
  4. The Dothraki Sea        | 8 chapters
  5. The Wall                       | 6 chapters
  6. The Vale                       | 5 chapters
  7. Beyond the Wall          | 2 chapters
  8. The Free Cities            | 2 chapters

A Clash of Kings:

  1. The Crownlands           | 28 chapters
  2. The Riverlands             | 12 chapters
  3. The North                     | 11 chapters
  4. Beyond the Wall           | 7 chapters
  5. The Red Waste             | 5 chapters
  6. The Stormlands            | 3 chapters
  7. The Iron Islands            | 2 chapters
  8. The Wall                        | 1 chapter
  9. The Reach                    | 1 chapter

A Storm of Swords

  1. The Riverlands            | 26 chapters
  2. The Crownlands          | 25 chapters
  3. Beyond the Wall          | 9 chapters
  4. The Wall                       | 9 chapters
  5. Slaver's Bay                 | 5 chapters
  6. The North                    | 4 chapters
  7. The Vale                      | 3 chapters
  8. The Summer Sea        | 1 chapter

A Feast for Crows

  1. The Crownlands           | 18 chapters
  2. The Riverlands             | 8 chapters
  3. The Iron Islands           | 4 chapters
  4. Dorne                            | 4 chapters
  5. The Free Cities            | 4 chapters
  6. The Vale                       | 3 chapters
  7. The Reach                    | 3 chapters
  8. The Wall                       | 1 chapter
  9. The North                    | 1 chapter

A Dance with Dragons

  1. Slaver's Bay                | 21 chapters
  2. The North                   | 13 chapters
  3. The Wall                      | 11 chapters
  4. The Free Cities           | 11 chapters
  5. Beyond the Wall         | 6 chapters
  6. The Crownlands         | 3 chapters
  7. The Summer Sea        | 2 chapters
  8. The Vale                      | 1 chapter
  9. The Riverlands           | 1 chapter
  10. The Stormlands         | 1 chapter
  11. Dorne   

As you say, the statistics is pointless. Number of chapters is not an indicator of importance to the story. 

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I don't know -- I actually kind of like seeing it laid out like this. It's interesting when we compare it with the way people might normally group the "plots" of the books. I would have generally said that AGoT has "northern" plots (Bran, Jon, some Tyrion), a "southern" plot (Ned, Arya, Sansa, later Catelyn, some Tyrion), and an "eastern" plot with Dany etc. Seeing it broken down in  more detail you realize how much of the northern related stuff -- not just in AGoT but throughout the whole series -- takes place in the Riverlands, not the proper North. Similarly, Dany moves around a lot -- throwing off her counts.

I don't think it necessarily represents importance to the story, but it is interesting to see what where it is that we've been the most, and how regions like the Riverlands -- which serve as important borders between the more "important" regions of the Crownlands and the North -- end up taking most of the time as a result.

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