In relation to Game of Thrones through the maps, I found this map of the European continent that locates all the kingdoms, tribes and civilizations of the Song of Ice and Fire’s saga. Now we can do the inverse exercise: If Europe were Westeros.
Without getting into details, there are some important differences with the Huffingtonpost map.
The Seven Kingdoms of Westeros in Europe
To begin with, House Lannister is identified with much of Germany and the Netherlands, as the British Isles and Iceland would be the Iron Islands of House Greyjoy. As a side effect, House Tully would be displaced to the east towards Poland and Denmark.
The Reach of House Tyrell and France go hand in hand. To make Highgarden the equivalent of the Parisian city is an important reference to French culture and history.
House Stark would occupy European Russia, as well as the Baltic Republics and part of Belarus and Ukraine. The boundary of The Wall would clearly be the Ural Mountains, leaving the Siberian steppe as lands beyond the Wall.
House Baratheon would leave the Kingdom of Wales to settle in Italy almost completely, in addition to the French island of Corsica. It may be that this new location responds more to historical facts than to geographical ones, if we associate the death of Robert Baratheon with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages, i.e. the War of the Five Kings in Game of Thrones.
Kingslanding is not associated with London on this map. Instead, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms moves to Europe, specifically Venice, which fits better with the city’s appearance shown on the television series, which was recorded on the shores of the Adriatic Sea.
House Arryn and the Arryn Valley have been located in the Carpathians, a mountainous and almost inaccessible area, which responds very well to the physical description of The Vale. The Eyrie, like Poenari’s castle of the Romanian prince Vlad Tepes, is an almost impregnable fortress located on the top of a peak in the Mountains of the Moon.
The peoples in Asia and Africa
With the Mediterranean Sea as the Narrow Sea, it is very reasonable to associate the towns and peoples of the continent of Essos on the coasts of North Africa and the Near East.
Cultural similarities appear in the Game of Thrones’ story with the Free Cities of Braavos, Pentos, Myr, Tyrosh, Lys, Volantis and Qohor, which symbolize the commercial settlements of Greeks, Romans and Phoenicians in the Mediterranean basin.
Dosh Kaleen and Qarth would occupy the Arabian Peninsula, establishing a clear relationship with the Persian Empire. Meanwhile, the slave cities of Mereen, Yunkai and Astapor in North Africa remind us of the period of slavery of the ancient Egyptian empire (as a detail, the pyramid found in the city of Mereen reinforces this appreciation).
Of course, there is no 100% truthful theory about the correspondence between the Westeros places and the real world, but I consider that the great virtue of this map is that it has managed to respect the relative position of all kingdoms, from the north to Russia and the Urals to the south with the Iberian Peninsula, and the East to the Near East.
