Most accurate Game of Thrones map?

[Naima]

I see many maps of Game of Thrones around, but which one is the most reliable to take informations from?

I wished to make my own version of this map ... as many other cartographers did , since I too love this setting, so I was wondering which map to take for inspiration to take the most precise coastlines, shape and position of the major landmarks ...

[Azélor]

It is hard to tell because we can't know for sure which maps are accurate.
The ones in the books and the ones that come with the official material are probably a safe assumption.

But it is still impossible to tell if the maps are a good representation of the actual scale/distance. Based on the show and on science, I'm skeptic. I think the official map is heavily distorted.
Notice how the continents generally stretches? just like our own maps from that time period.
If Westeros is bad, Essos is worst. Some maps don't even show Essos eastern coasts, others fill the void with giant landmasses that might not exist at all (like Atlantis)
The further away from Westeros, the stranger the map gets.

Torstan who made the official atlas, said that the map was draw by the people from Oldtown. The farther you move from Oldtown, the more distorted the map becomes.

Anyway, if I wanted to make one, I would stick to the source material since there is no way to know which is the best.

[Gamerprinter]

Well consider that George R. R. Martin was lazy (at least from a cartographer's point of view), Westeros consists of Great Britain, with Ireland flipped upsidedown and attached at the top. if you know what Great Britain and Ireland are shaped like, then you have the "official" coastal description of Westeros. This doesn't reflect the interior boundaries, but...

[ChickPea]

There's a blogger Adam Whitehead who has a site dedicated to the mapping of Westeros and beyond. I don't think he has any particular knowledge that's not freely available elsewhere, but he's done some decent analysis on all the information available, so it might be worth a look. It's called the Atlas of Ice and Fire.

[Redrobes]

Torstan was given the commission to map Westeros for George Martin. He had a post and some links here:
https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=18245
https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=22497

Whether you consider his maps the official map or not I dont know. I would have thought the ones in the book plus reading through them and extracting all of the information in the series to be the only proper way of doing it.

[Naima]

I just found another interesting GOT Map ... That tries to give an explanation to the strange geography of the regions.

WesterosGeologicMapBIG-680x1530.jpg

[Falconius]

But it is still impossible to tell if the maps are a good representation of the actual scale/distance. Based on the show and on science, I'm skeptic. I think the official map is heavily distorted.

When I was reading the story and looking at the map I always got the impression that Westeros was much much longer North to South than would be implied by the copy Britain and Ireland. Not sure on the east west distance for Westeros. On Essos I always got the impression that it was much much longer in the east west orientation than the maps would seem to imply.

Interestingly it was always my impression whilst reading that everything was actually flipped on a horizontal, so Essos was actually to the West of Westeros. Maybe the maps were delayed. I don't think the first three books included a map of Essos, so it was already created in my mind on the Western side.

[Naima]

Another Idea that got me on those maps is about the tilting possibility , pehraps the Map is not really north south as is showed but slightly tilted with the North inclined toward the east and the south toward the west, this to somehow justify better the climate variances...

Another of the things that confused me a lot about GOT geography is the neck swamps, not much for the River going down in an Istmus , which can be possible, but because the River seems to come out from a Swamp and then run down in the map ... So I tried to find an explanation and I come out with two ....


1 According to the Geography of Florida, a very low land on sea level characterized by small hills of no more than around 50 m could encircle the Neck area and force both a central swamy region and from there the River could flow with a very minimal pendence and so a very quite flow toward south ...

https://i.gyazo.com/38b89debd9f02aa2...0c6d57ee31.jpg

2 The Green Fork is not a river but a fracture that separates the Vale as a Sort of Peninsula , from the western part , this would imply that the Green Fork is a salt water kind of river with mostly a placid flow dependant on tides.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20120719200633

Which ones you think its more plausible?

Other possible explanations?

[Falconius]

2 The Green Fork is not a river but a fracture that separates the Vale as a Sort of Peninsula , from the western part , this would imply that the Green Fork is a salt water kind of river with mostly a placid flow dependant on tides.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20120719200633

Which ones you think its more plausible?

Other possible explanations?

I think the Twins used it as it's water source. As I recall it was one of the reasons for the Twins vaunted defensive capabilities. Could easily be wrong though it has been so long. I might also be getting confused with the Tully's.

Looking at the forks as a sort of strait or a series of narrows makes sense visually speaking. Also its got mountains on either side so a fjord like occurrence kind of follows, as if the mountain range just sunk right there in the middle for some reason. Thailand has those incredible karst formations, and seems to have marshy areas around Phang Nga Bay, maybe it's something like that?

[Naima]

Not sure about Thailand, but surely Nature can surprise in many ways sometimes...

Considering also the "Magic" In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, the Neck was originally a much more pleasant location, but during the war between the Children of the Forest and the First Men it became a point of no retreat for the Children. When their formidable fortress of Moat Cailin looked like it might fall, the Children called upon the same sorcery they had used to shatter the Arm of Dorne centuries earlier, the "hammer of the waters", to destroy the Neck and split Westeros in half. The sorcery was not effective and they merely flooded the Neck from coast to coast, creating bogs and swamps.

THis giving a sort of realistic approach might imply perhaps a sort of Earthshake , perhaps the place is on the border of a fault and land collapsed putting the terrain at same level of sea creating a series of swamps .... in the meanwhile the original river that pehraps went from the hills to the sea southward turned into a sort of Long Fjord looking like a river.

By looking at the original maps, the idea that the Kings Road follows a narrow path near the sea to the east, might sugest a raised terrain that so can justify the river flowing south and the division with the bay .

agot-original-north-map.png