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Game of Thrones Wiki ÔÇ║ The Peoples of the World ÔÇ║ The Kings of the Iron Islands
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What they wereroyal house
WhenThe Age of Heroes ÔÇô 1 AC as kings; and twice since
At their height4,595,204 souls, about, in 3 BC
 All The Peoples of the World

The Kings of the Iron Islands

The Age of Heroes ÔÇô 1 AC as kings; and twice since

A people who decided that taking things was a religion, and have been losing wars about it ever since.

The fuller tale

The ironborn trace themselves to the Grey King, who is said to have ruled a thousand years, married a mermaid and made a hall of the bones of a sea dragon; the Citadel's view of this account is not recorded, but can be guessed. What is real is the Drowned God, the iron price, and the salt kings and rock kings who once chose their high king at a kingsmoot on Old Wyk.

At their height they held the whole western coast and the riverlands with it, and the Hoares ruled from Harrenhal. That ended in one afternoon when Balerion came over the walls. Aegon then let the islands choose their own lord, and they chose House Greyjoy, who had been kings before and have never entirely stopped acting like it.

Twice in living memory a Greyjoy has crowned himself, and twice the arithmetic has been the same: a few hundred longships against a continent. The islands are stony, poor and thinly peopled, and the whole culture is an argument that this is a virtue.

Souls under this banner ÔÇö the chronicleÔÇÖs own reckoning, never a census; Westeros keeps none. See the note in the timeline.
01.3M2.5M3.8M5M12k BC1k BC1 AC298 AC4.6M

The ground they held

 See the world in 3 BC on the timeline 
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.