World of A Song of Ice and Fire

The fictional world in which the A Song of Ice and Fire novels by George R. R. Martin take place is divided into several continents, known collectively as The Known World.

Most of the story takes place on the continent of Westeros and in a large political entity known as the Seven Kingdoms. Those kingdoms are spread across nine regions: the North, the Iron Islands, the Riverlands, the Vale, the Westerlands, the Stormlands, the Reach, the Crownlands, and Dorne. A massive wall of ice and old magic separates the Seven Kingdoms from the largely unmapped area to the north. The vast continent of Essos is located east of Westeros, across the Narrow Sea. The closest foreign nations to Westeros are the Free Cities, a collection of nine independent city-states along the western edge of Essos. The lands along the southern coastline of Essos are called the Lands of the Summer Sea and include Slaver's Bay and the ruins of Valyria. The latter is the former home of the ancestors of House Targaryen. To the south of Essos are the continents of Sothoryos and Ulthos, which in the narrative are largely unexplored.

The planet experiences erratic seasons of unpredictable duration that can last for many years. At the beginning of A Song of Ice and Fire, Westeros has enjoyed a decade-long summer, and many fear that an even longer and harsher winter will follow.

George R. R. Martin set the Ice and Fire story in an alternative world to Earth, a "secondary world". Martin has also suggested that the world may be larger than the real world planet Earth. The Ice and Fire narrative is set in a post-magic world where people no longer believe in supernatural things such as the Others. Although the characters understand the natural aspects of their world, they do not know or understand its magical elements. Religion, though, has a significant role in the lives of people, and the characters practice many different religions.

A Game of Thrones, the first installment of the A Song of Ice and Fire series, has two maps of Westeros. Each new book has added one or two maps so that, as of A Dance with Dragons, seven maps of the fictional world are available in the books. Martin said in 2003 that complete world maps were not made available so that readers may better identify with people of the real Middle Ages who were uneducated about distant places. He also did not "subscribe to the theory put forth in The Tough Guide To Fantasyland ... that eventually the characters must visit every place shown on The Map." He conceded, however, that readers may be able to piece together a world map by the end of the series. He was intentionally vague about the size of the Ice and Fire world, omitting a scale on the maps to discourage prediction of travel lengths based on measured distances. A new map artist was used in A Dance with Dragons so that the maps are available in two versions by James Sinclair and Jeffrey L. Ward, depending on the book. The old maps were redone to match the style of the new ones.

A set of foldout maps was published on October 30, 2012, as The Lands of Ice and Fire (ISBN 978-0345538543). The illustrator and cartographer Jonathan Roberts drew the maps, based on drafts by Martin. The twelve maps in the set are entitled "The Known World", "The West", "Central Essos", "The East", "Westeros", "Beyond The Wall", "The Free Cities", "Slaver's Bay", "The Dothraki Sea", "King's Landing", "Braavos", and "Journeys". The latter tracks the paths taken by the novels' characters.

The story takes place primarily on an elongated continent called Westeros, which is roughly the size of South America. The continent is home to the Seven Kingdoms, located to the south side of the Wall, a massive man-made ice wall (allegedly fused with magic) 700 feet in height and spanning east–west for 300 miles from coast to coast. The Seven Kingdoms are further divided into the so-called "North" and "South" by a swamp-rich isthmus called the Neck. The land north of the Wall still makes up a large chunk of Westeros (being roughly the size of Canada), but remains largely unmapped and unexplored, especially the ice field region north and west of a massive mountain range called the Frostfangs, which marks the farthest geographic limit of human settlements. The northern extent of the continent is therefore unknown, although thought to be continuous with a polar ice cap north of the Shivering Sea known as the White Waste.

At the novel's beginning, the majority of Westeros is united under the rule of a single king, whose seat is the "Iron Throne" in the city of King's Landing. The king has a large number of minor direct vassals in area known as the Crownlands, surrounding King's Landing; while each of the other regions is functionally controlled by a different major noble house, who all wield significant power in their own lands, while owing fealty to the Iron Throne. Martin here drew inspiration from medieval European history, in particular the Hundred Years' War, the Crusades, the Albigensian Crusade, and the Wars of the Roses.