The Realm of the Iron Throne

1 AC onward

A thousand swords melted into a chair deliberately unpleasant to sit in, and the three centuries of argument about who gets to.

The fuller tale

Aegon had the blades of his beaten enemies heaped up and worked by dragonflame into a seat with no comfort in it anywhere, on the theory that a king should never be at ease. It is a poor chair and a superb piece of political theatre, and it has cut nearly everyone who has sat on it, which the smallfolk consider a form of judgement.

What it represents is newer than most of what it rules. Before 1 AC there had been seven or more kingdoms for thousands of years; the single realm is a three-hundred-year-old idea held together by dragons, then by roads and laws, then by habit, and then by nothing much at all. Every civil war in this chronicle is the realm briefly remembering that it used to be several countries.

It ends melted, by a dragon that appears to have understood the argument better than anyone in the room. What replaces it is a council of tired lords electing a king, and a North that walks away from the arrangement ÔÇö which is either a wheel broken or a wheel repaired with different spokes, depending on who is telling it.

Souls under this banner ÔÇö the chronicleÔÇÖs own reckoning, never a census; Westeros keeps none. See the note in the timeline.

The ground they held

The Reach1 BC to 129 ACDragonstone1 AC to 129 ACSkagos & the northern isles1 AC to 129 ACThe Crownlands1 AC to 129 ACThe Iron Islands1 AC to 129 ACThe New Gift1 AC to 58 ACThe North1 AC to 129 ACThe Riverlands1 AC to 129 ACThe Stormlands1 AC to 129 ACThe Vale of Arryn1 AC to 129 ACThe Westerlands1 AC to 129 ACDragonstone131 AC to 299 ACSkagos & the northern isles131 AC to 298 ACThe Crownlands131 AC to 302 ACThe Iron Islands131 AC to 289 ACThe North131 AC to 298 ACThe Reach131 AC to 299 ACThe Riverlands131 AC to 298 ACThe Stormlands131 AC to 299 ACThe Vale of Arryn131 AC to 298 ACThe Westerlands131 AC to 298 ACDorne157 AC to 161 ACDorne187 AC to 302 ACThe Iron Islands290 AC to 299 ACThe Reach300 AC to 303 ACThe Stormlands301 AC onwardDragonstone302 AC to 303 ACThe Riverlands303 AC onwardDorne305 AC onwardDragonstone305 AC onwardThe Crownlands305 AC onwardThe Iron Islands305 AC onwardThe Reach305 AC onwardThe Vale of Arryn305 AC onwardThe Westerlands305 AC onward

Ôîø See the world in 297 AC on the timeline ÔåÆ

What became of it ÔÇö if an ending is written, it is here. Spoilers.

The chronicle records no ending here ÔÇö or none the maesters have set down.