A Real-World Version of the World Map of A Song of Ice and Fire

Thanks to the magic of HBO, I have been immersed in the world of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels. I watched the first season, loved it, have completed the first two books, and am currently on the third. When season two arrives on television, I’ll know exactly what’s going on right from the get-go, unlike last season, when I hadn’t read anything.

Anyway, one of the interesting things about the literature is the world in which it takes place. Everything takes place in Westeros, with the exception of one POV character, who’s in Essos. I liken Westeros to the Wetern Hemisphere on our own green old Earth, while Essos is Eurasia.

I’ve noticed so many similarities between the geography of Martin’s imagined world and the real one, I decided to take the liberty of re-mapping all of the locations in the books against a real world map. Obviously, one runs into several problems, including the fact only bits and pieces of Martin’s world are officially mapped, and the real world map lacks many of the more distinctive features in Martin’s world.

For a full-size view of the map, click here.

When you zoom out, Westeros more closely resembles Norway, positively crenillated with fjords, bays, and harbors. But I didn’t want to fiddle around with scale. Westeros is a hemisphere-sized landmass, and like our own Western Hemisphere, is clearly deliniated between North and South, with a narrow neck connecting them.

I totally disregarded real world terrain and political boundaries. The US-Canada border, for instance, is too far south to serve as The Wall. In addition, spacial relationships and distances are obviously not kept constant, but I did my best to keep them in the ballpark. Glaring downsides to this translation mean that King’s Landing doesn’t have much of a bay, The Land of Always Winter is at the bottom, not the top of the map, and The Vale of Arryn is a bit stunted, with no fingers.