Ran Posted September 16, 2006 Share Posted September 16, 2006 GRRM means a statute league, not 3 nautical miles, when using it to refer to distances in the series. Much as Tolkien did in LotR (I suspect Tolkien is the one who popularized the use of 'league' in the fantasy genre, on top of everything else). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spring Bass Posted September 21, 2006 Share Posted September 21, 2006 Just curious about the table. When you are measuring it as how far the raven flies in a day, are you counting it as if the bird flew in a straight line? If you are, then the rough north-south axis from Sunspear to the Wall (1010 leagues), would be 3486 miles. Just for comparison, I used my Atlas to get a rough estimate of a north-south axis from the Straights of Magellan to northern Venezuela (of South America) at 4603 miles (the measurement on the Atlas was in nautical miles, and I got about 4000 nautical miles distance). Of course, the actual road distance from Sunspear to the Wall would be much longer. Still, does 3500 miles straight from Sunspear to the Wall seem about right based on the estimated size of the Seven Kingdoms? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted September 21, 2006 Share Posted September 21, 2006 1010 statute leagues, or around 3000 miles, is roughly about right, plus minus a few hundred. But of course, GRRM has said Westeros the continent is about comparable to South America, so you have to measure beyond that ... and we don't really know how far north Westeros goes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spring Bass Posted September 21, 2006 Share Posted September 21, 2006 The distance given (about 3500 statute miles) makes pretty good sense, then. You could still have a pretty vast area north of the Wall supporting the tens of thousands of wildlings that came south as part of Mance's group, not to mention the area described on the ASoS map as "land of always winter" (probably a glacier or the like). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Adequate Jon Posted September 22, 2006 Share Posted September 22, 2006 Just curious about the table. When you are measuring it as how far the raven flies in a day, are you counting it as if the bird flew in a straight line? Yes, they are straight-line distances. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spring Bass Posted September 22, 2006 Share Posted September 22, 2006 Yes, they are straight-line distances. Perfect. Although, if you don't have wings, that leaves you with some pretty long traveling times for an army. The importance of Riverrun can not be understated; controlling it means that an army could send soldiers by water almost to any where in the Riverlands. EDIT: Sorry, I just wanted to add one more thing about the North (the lands north of Moat Cailin). Using the chart, if you take the distance from White Harbor to Wall, multiply by the width of the North (roughly around the distance from the Twins to King's Landing), and subtract the area of the Bay of Ice (roughly (1/2 X the distance from Oldtown to Highgarden)^2, since the jut of land that Karhold is on is similar to one half the area of the Bay of Ice), then you get around 750,000 square miles in a rough estimate of the area of the North. That's around 4.73 times the size of California, or close to twice the size of France. There, I've committed enough sin for the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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