How Westeros sits
The left continent is Westeros. The Wall is the ice cap. Winterfell is not “near King’s Landing”; it is a hard ride down the kingsroad through the Neck and Moat Cailin. The capital is a Blackwater port in the south-east of that continent. Dorne is the hot peninsula at the bottom. The Iron Islands and Casterly Rock hold the west coast. Highgarden and Oldtown feed and teach the Reach.
The Narrow Sea
Braavos hides in a northern lagoon on the far shore. Pentos is the usual crossing for a Targaryen with a magister. The Stepstones and the three daughters — Myr, Tyrosh, Lys — fight over the middle water. Volantis is the old mouth of the Rhoyne, much further south-east.
Essos inland
Vaes Dothrak is a city you do not draw blades in, sitting in the Dothraki sea. Slaver’s Bay is Meereen, Yunkai, Astapor, pyramids facing the water. Valyria is the smoking ruin of a peninsula. Qarth walls the Jade Sea. Asshai is the far shadow, a port the show barely walks and the books still smell of.
The plate is original. It is not HBO’s title sequence and it is not George R. R. Martin’s printed atlas scanned. Keeps are placed to match the story’s distances, not a coffee-table poster.
Places
- Asshai-by-the-Shadow
- Astapor
- Braavos
- Casterly Rock
- Castle Black
- Dragonstone
- Harrenhal
- Highgarden
- King's Landing
- Last Hearth
- Lys
- Meereen
- Moat Cailin
- Myr
- Oldtown
- Pentos
- Pyke
- Qarth
- Riverrun
- Storm's End
- Sunspear
- The Dreadfort
- The Eyrie
- The Twins
Questions
How far is Winterfell from King’s Landing?
On this plate, a full north–south of Westeros. In the books it is a campaign, not an afternoon. The Neck is the pinch that makes the North defensible.
Is Braavos east of the Vale?
Across the Narrow Sea from the Bite and the Vale. The Titan faces the lagoon mouth, not King’s Landing.
Why include Asshai if the show barely goes there?
Because the map of the known world does. Melisandre, shadowbinding, and the Jade Sea trade all point at that port. A Westeros-only plate would lie about the east.