George R.R. Martin is a liar. Well, not a liar, but he’s definitely messing with us. If you look at a standard world map of Game of Thrones, you see Westeros. It looks like a giant Britain stacked on top of an upside-down Ireland. Then you see Essos, the massive landmass to the east where Daenerys spent most of her time wandering around getting sunburnt and conquering cities.
But here’s the thing. That’s not the whole world. Not even close.
Most fans think the "Known World" is the entire planet. It isn't. We are basically looking at a medieval person’s perspective of geography. Imagine a map of the world drawn in 1000 AD; half the stuff is missing, and the stuff that is there is probably drawn wrong because the cartographer heard a rumor from a drunk sailor. That is exactly what we are dealing with here.
Westeros is just the tip of the iceberg
The world map of Game of Thrones is dominated by Westeros because that's where the political drama lives. From the Wall in the north down to the deserts of Dorne, it feels massive. Martin has stated that Westeros is roughly the size of South America. That’s about 4,500 miles from the Frozen Shore to the Summer Sea.
Think about that for a second.
When characters like Littlefinger or Varys seem to teleport across the continent in later seasons of the show, they are actually traversing thousands of miles of rugged terrain. The scale is staggering. The North alone is as large as the other six kingdoms combined. It’s a logistical nightmare. This is why the Boltons and Starks are always so grumpy—it takes three weeks just to visit your neighbor for a cup of tea.
South of the Wall, the geography is pretty standard European-inspired fantasy. You’ve got the Riverlands (the punching bag of the continent), the Vale with its impassable mountains, and the Reach, which is basically the breadbasket. But the further you move away from King's Landing, the weirder the map gets.
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Essos: The land of "Wait, how long is this place?"
If Westeros is South America, Essos is Eurasia. It’s huge. Honestly, the world map of Game of Thrones starts to get a bit blurry the further east you go. We know the Free Cities—Braavos, Pentos, Volantis—because they trade with Westeros. They are basically the Mediterranean.
Then you hit the Dothraki Sea. It’s not a sea. It’s a giant grassland.
Beyond that? The Red Waste. Qarth. And then, the places most people forget exist because the show didn't have the budget to go there. We’re talking about the Shadow Lands and Asshai. On the far eastern edge of the known world map of Game of Thrones, the geography stops being "medieval Europe" and starts being "Lovecraftian nightmare."
Asshai is a city made of black stone that seems to drink the light. There are no children there. No animals. Just sorcerers and masked people. It’s tucked away in the bottom right corner of the map, and we still have no idea what’s behind it. Some fans speculate that if you keep sailing east from Asshai, you’d eventually hit the western coast of Westeros.
Martin says no. The world is round, sure, but it’s bigger than Earth. You aren't just looping around the corner.
The continents you probably didn't know existed
Most people can name Westeros and Essos. If you’re a bit of a nerd, you know Sothoryos. It’s the giant jungle continent to the south. It’s basically "What if the Amazon Rainforest tried to kill you every five minutes?" It’s full of plague, brindled men, and wyverns.
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But have you heard of Ulthos?
Look at the bottom edge of a complete world map of Game of Thrones. Just south of Asshai, across the Saffron Straits, there’s a landmass called Ulthos. We know zero things about it. Literally nothing. Martin put it on the map in The Lands of Ice and Fire (the official map book) just to show that the world is bigger than the story. It’s covered in dense "shadow forests."
It makes the world feel alive. It’s not just a stage for the Lannisters to fight the Starks; it’s a planet with its own mysteries that don't care about who sits on the Iron Throne.
Why the map is "wrong" on purpose
The Maesters at the Citadel draw these maps. They are scientists, but they are limited by their technology. This is why the world map of Game of Thrones looks different depending on which book you open.
- The North is often distorted because nobody goes up there.
- Sothoryos is barely charted because everyone who tries to explore it dies of "Bloody Flux" or gets eaten by a giant ape.
- The Sunset Sea (west of Westeros) is a giant blank space.
Arya Stark asks at the end of the show, "What's west of Westeros?" In the lore, a woman named Elissa Farman actually stole some dragon eggs, bought a ship, and sailed west centuries before the main story. She found three islands—Aegon, Visenya, and Rhaenys—and then kept going. Years later, a Corlys Velaryon (the Sea Snake from House of the Dragon) claimed he saw her ship in Asshai.
If that’s true, she didn't just find a new continent; she navigated the entire globe. Or she found a wormhole. With Martin, you never really know.
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The climate mystery and the map
You can't talk about the world map of Game of Thrones without mentioning the seasons. This isn't just a "weather" thing. The geography of the world is fundamentally broken by magic.
The "Land of Always Winter" in the far north doesn't have a northern border on any map. It just... keeps going. Is it connected to the top of the world? Does it wrap around? Some theorists think the Land of Always Winter might actually connect to the far eastern reaches of Essos, creating a polar land bridge.
This would explain how the Others (White Walkers) could potentially threaten the whole world, not just the guys in the Night's Watch. However, most official maps show a clear break. The Shivering Sea separates the two.
Real-world inspirations for the geography
Martin didn't just throw ink at a page. He’s a history buff.
Westeros is England and Scotland, but scaled up to the size of a continent. The Wall is Hadrian's Wall on steroids.
The Iron Islands? Those are the Viking settlements.
The Valyrian Peninsula? That’s ancient Rome, specifically after the "Doom," which is a clear parallel to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius at Pompeii, mixed with a bit of the fall of the Roman Empire.
The world map of Game of Thrones is a patchwork of human history. The Free Cities are the Italian city-states of the Renaissance. The Dothraki Sea is the Eurasian Steppe, home to the Mongols. Even the strange, far-off places like Yi Ti are based on Imperial China.
It feels real because it's grounded in how our own world used to be perceived. It’s a map of rumors and trade routes.
Actionable Insights for Map Enthusiasts
If you really want to understand the layout of this world, don't just look at a JPEG on a wiki.
- Check the "The Lands of Ice and Fire" collection. This is the only 100% canon set of maps. Anything else you see online is likely fan-made and contains errors regarding the scale of the Jade Sea or the placement of Ib.
- Look at the trade routes. Follow the wine. Arbor Gold and Dornish Sour are mentioned everywhere. If you track where these goods go, the world map of Game of Thrones starts to make sense as a functioning economy, not just a fantasy setting.
- Study the "Doom of Valyria." The map actually changed. Valyria used to be a solid peninsula; now it's a shattered cluster of islands surrounded by "Smoking Sea." Geography in this world is literal history.
- Acknowledge the gaps. Don't try to find a "complete" map that shows the back of the planet. It doesn't exist. Accepting the "fog of war" is part of the experience of being a fan of this series.
The world is massive, terrifying, and mostly unexplored. That’s what makes it great.