Valyrian steel

The Known World
"A Map of The Known World" by George R. R. Martin
A Song of Ice and Fire location
Created by	George R. R. Martin
Genre	Novel/Television
Type	Fantasy world
Notable locations	Westeros Essos Sothoryos Ulthos

Westeros
A map of the Westeros continent
A Song of Ice and Fire location
Created by	George R. R. Martin
Genre	High fantasy
Type	Continent
Notable locations	King's Landing, Seven Kingdoms
Notable characters	Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Eddard Stark, Catelyn Stark, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Bran Stark, Cersei Lannister, Jaime Lannister, Theon Greyjoy
First appearance	A Game of Thrones

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.

Most of the story takes place on the continent Westeros, in a large political entity known as the Seven Kingdoms. The "Seven Kingdoms" actually consist of nine regions (the North, the Iron Islands, the Riverlands, the Vale, the Westerlands, the Stormlands, the Reach, the Crownlands, and Dorne), and there is a largely unmapped area to the north, separated from the Seven Kingdoms by a massive wall of ice and old magic. The vast continent of Essos lies to the east of Westeros, across the Narrow Sea. The closest foreign nations to Westeros are the Free Cities, a collection of independent city-states along the western edge of this eastern continent. The lands along the southern coastline of the eastern continent, collectively called the Lands of the Summer Sea, include Slavers Bay and the ruins of Valyria, the former home of Westeros' Targaryen kings. To the south of Essos lie the continents of Sothoryos and Ulthos, which in the narrative are largely unexplored.

George R. R. Martin set the Ice and Fire story in an alternative world of Earth, a "secondary world", such as J. R. R. Tolkien pioneered with Middle-earth. Martin has also suggested that world may be larger than the real world planet Earth. The Ice and Fire narrative can be considered to be set in a post-magic world where people no longer believe in supernatural things such as the Others, and while the characters understand the natural aspects of their world, they cannot comprehend its magical elements. Religion, though, has a significant role in the life of people with the characters practicing 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 individual maps of the fictional world are available in the books (see table). Martin said in 2003 that complete world maps were deliberately not made available so that readers may better identify with people of the real Middle Ages who were unilluminated 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." However, he said readers may be able to piece together a world map by the end of the series. He was intentionally vague with the size of the Ice and Fire world, omitting a scale on the maps to discourage prediction of travel lengths based on measured distances. Map artists changed during the writing of A Dance with Dragons so that the maps are available in two versions by James Sinclair and Jeffrey L. Ward, depending on the books. The old maps were redone to match the style of the new ones.